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Another Way the LHC Could Self-Destruct
KentuckyFC writes "Just when you thought it was safe to switch on the LHC (though it won't be for a while yet), another nightmare scenario has emerged that some critics worry could cause the particle accelerator to explode. The culprit this time is not an Earth-swallowing black hole but a 'Bose supernova' in the accelerator's superfluid helium bath. Physicists have been playing with Bose Einstein Condensate (BECs) for over 10 years now. But in 2001, one group discovered that placing them in a powerful magnetic field could cause the attractive forces between atoms to become repulsive. That caused their BEC to explode in a Bose supernova — which they called a 'Bosenova,' a name that fortunately did not catch on. This was little more than a curiosity when only a microscopic blob of cold matter was involved. But superfluid liquid helium is also BEC. And physicists have suddenly remembered that the LHC is swimming in 700,000 liters of the stuff while being zapped by some of the most powerful magnetic fields on the planet. So is the LHC a Bose supernova waiting to go off? Not according to the CERN theory division, which has published its calculations that show the LHC is safe (abstract). They also point out that no other superfluid helium handling facility has mysteriously blown itself to pieces."
when anyone on the planet can whine an irrational complaint into the web-2.0 intertubes and expect someone to take them seriousy, reasonable discource doesn't scale. at some point, the people who know what they are doing in science simply need to tell the rest of the creationista, black-hole theorizing, dinosaur-living-with-people idiots to STFU and go away
[/rant]
Look, I don't claim to understand nuclear physics but when I read that a) we don't really understand what caused the Big Bang, and b) we're trying to recreate conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang, I get nervous. It doesn't seem like you have to be all that wrong about your assumptions to make a really big mess of things. This combined with my lack of interest whether this Higgs boson exists or not makes me wonder why we need to screw around with this. I don't think I'm alone in this line of reasoning.
Christianity?
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
... or it would be a great place, if it wasn't filled with French people!
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