Slashdot Mirror
EU Scientists Working On Laser To Rip a Hole In Spacetime
astroengine writes "Those pesky physicists are at it again; they want to build a laser so powerful that it will literally rip spacetime apart. Why? To prove the existence of virtual particles in the quantum vacuum, potentially unravel extra dimensions and possibly find the root of dark matter. The $1.6 billion Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility (known as ELI) will be built somewhere in Europe by the end of the decade and physicists are hoping the ten high-powered lasers — delivering 200 petawatts of power at a target for less than a trillionth of a second — will turn up some surprises about the very fabric of the Universe."
Commencing Primary Ignition....
Standby...
Standby...
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
Alright folks, listen up: This is not an appropriate time for a shark joke. This is very clearly an opportunity for an Alan Parsens or Preperation H reference.
Anybody caught making a Frickin' Sharks joke will be permanently labeled a virgin.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The answer is not what is given. The answer is:
1. Pork
2. Some researchers get media attention
3. Some researchers might get to play with the laser.
The whole idea is so lame. Please, give the money to a real condensed matter physicist, or a chemist or a materials scientist please.
If spacetime is ripped apart, where and when will any observations of any phenomena they are studying occur?
In the event of an alien invasion, can we point it upwards?
The combined power of 10 separate lasers would be focused down to a very small volume, creating conditions more extreme than in the center of our sun.
So they'll essentiallly be turning the Earth into the Death Star
And we feel good about letting Europeans man the switch?
Will they be wearing dark suits with funky helmets?
Developing a super powerful laser. That can't possibly be perverted for some other purpose, so whether or not it can rip a hole in the "fabric" of "space-time", I'm sure it's totally safe.
They need to call it "light" because politicians are stupid enough to ban if they call it "radiation" - although a powerful enough laser won't be visible light, but UV radiation...
Nerdy news for your nerdy needs? http://www.soylentnews.org Soylent News is people!
... we get invaded by the Strogg?
--
BMO
Another terrible headline, but the article is partly to blame. This isn't about ripping a hole in space time, it's just about putting energy in the vacuum so a bunch of virtual particles become real particles.
P.S. THE DEVICE WILL GO ONLINE IN 2012 AND END THE WORLD!!! AREN'T I CLEVER? PULL MY FINGER!!
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
power of this fully operational battle station! Fire at will commander.
Damn! I hate it when that happens.
Have gnu, will travel.
Not really. It simply creates enough energy so that particle and anti-particle pairs can exist for longer than usual (energy-time principle, lazy to link to wiki, google it yourself) before they annihilate each other; hopefully long enough to make observing them easier.
How does this constitute "ripping" spacetime...
More like "those pesky uneducated journalists" are at it again...
Hey, beats a shark joke. Let's mine 70s TV for a change.
Gently reply
... until the universe segfaults.
Im all for subatomic and quantum physics research - whatever you want to name this field with hip terms.
But, going about intentionally ripping space/time, getting into dark matter and whatnot, without actually having grasped and totally measured the presence, effects and mechanics of what we already discovered in regard to these, is dangerous. imagine if the research at the turn of the century went a bit too fast, and someone accidentally caused a nuclear fission without taking proper precautions at a lab. dark matter and what surrounds it, may be holding similar energy potential to unleash in certain conditions. i wouldnt want to meet those conditions before we know that we actually know what we are doing.
Read radical news here
don't actually exist. virtual particles are just mathematical simplicities. They are only a *model* of how physics works. Even in the name- they are "virtual" because they are just mathematical abstractions. nothing more.
Now just point it to the Debt Problem. You might prove that keynesian spending in lasers ir the way to growth. Wait. Are you talking about physics? You insensitive worker!
It'll be like the Greek fiscal crisis, times 10.
Would matter not be created at the flash point due to the amount of energy they're concentrating? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1997/09/970918045841.htm
As a Canadian, I wish our government would partner with the US to fund super awesome science mega-projects like this. Seriously guys, would it be so hard to scrap one aircraft carrier in exchange for something useful?
Its Half Life all over again
If you think that the EU is above starting these "unofficial skirmishes" for resources, I'd bet you think that CCTV cameras are a needed measure.
Did I miss something, but why is Europe getting all the cool new science toys? :-(
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm not a physicist and this might be a stupid question, but how do we generate 100,000 times the Earth's power generation to work the darn thing even for the smallest moment? Is there something I'm missing?
I write professional videogame reviews! http://www.digitallydownloaded.net/
The mini black hole at CERN designed to swallow everything didn't work - on to plan B!
Pardon the commercial intrusion, but are we discussing a $1.6B innovation by the same "Europe" currently facing an existential crisis that is threatening to destroy the very economic fabric of the world? Either I am confused, or the media are confused... because they are portraying the current fiscal situation as one step removed from "widespread cannibalism", and here we are talking about physics.
I wonder if this laser could trigger vacuum decay....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum
I am sure the other intelligent species in the galaxy would be annoyed....
:-D
(Let's see who gets the reference...)
That sums up what killed nasa.
I'm guessing...plaid and flannel.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Just ask LLNL. They've been working on their laser ignition fusion device for 10 years+ and still haven't reached their 500terrawatt goal.
yes, I know the purpose isn't the same but I'm talking about capabilities here.
Just like everything else in dreamland science, there's about 25 years you need to tack on to any time estimate
$1.6 billion is a bargain to have space and time ripped up. The money won't be missed anyway.
"Hellish beings from another Universe will come charging through the gap "
And they'll all be named John.
When then Klingons and the Romulans did a similar experiment in a fictional show, they did it on a remote planet and that was still not far enough away for the safety of the respective populations.
Let's rip up space and see what's underneath. What could go wrong?
Advice: on VPS providers
Or read From a Buick 8? Or The Langoliers?
I really don't want to rip a hole in space-time.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
The bad news is they plan to test it 12/22/12.
Destroying reality just to prove a point.
Professor Farnsworth: We tore the universe a new space-hole, alright. But it's clenching shut fast!
Perhaps the most appropriate department title I have seen.
Do not look at laser with remaining spacetime.
Yep, vacuum is nothing.
Henrik Casimir called, he wants a word with you.
Henrik Casimir called, he wants a word with you.
(And, before anybody replies, yes, I know, he's calling from the Great Beyond.)
Lets see a petawatt is 1 x 10^15.. Our star (sol) has a surface power of +/- 4 x 10^25 and it hasn't rent space time asunder yet that I know of, but hell I could be wrong. 200 PW is only a little more then the power of the sun that hits the earth. The sun runs at its power level continuously and they think they can do that in a couple of fempto seconds? I think not.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
I absolutely forbid them or anyone else from doing this. Strictly NO.
142 comments and not a Buckaroo Banzai joke to be found. And you call yourselves nerds :(
Well, we'll rip a hole in spacetime. That'll show you.
100 year old occult chemistry has the answer.. just do yoga and concentrate really hard on shrinking your field of view to the size of atoms and look for the dark matter.
I read this and thought of the beginning of half life...
How many femto seconds to get a perfect tan?
After thousands of years of searching the universe for intelligent life scientists eventually realized that the evidence had been right in front of their eyes since the invention of the telescope. Once an intelligent species discovered quantum physics it was only a matter of time before their experiments triggered a super nova, thus wiping themselves out before ever achieving faster than light travel.
This does not rip a hole in spacetime, or anything like that. It's all about pair production, which is mundane and happens all the time, but is very hard to observe directly without large amounts of energy. (There are indirect ways of seeing it, though. For example, astrophysical TeV photon sources such as some blazars cannot be observed at TeV wavelengths beyond a certain distance from us because the energy gets used up by pair production.)
FWIW, I work in astrophysics.
Since we exist in a false vacuum, the rip in space-time will cause a vacuum metastability event since it's not contained within a singularity (where the flow of time equals zero).
There. Can I now apply for a research grant?
delivering 200 petawatts of power at a target for less than a trillionth of a second
I suppose it's cheaper than kicking Greece out of the euro zone.
Remind me of Subtle knife
I guess the Death Star patent has expired, then?
As another poster said, this is about virtual pair production, which we see all the time. But there's an interesting side effect of pair production which I figured I'd toss out there: it makes vacuum an imperfect insulator. If you apply enough voltage across a chunk of vacuum, current -will- start to flow. In other words, vacuum has a breakdown voltage as a result of virtual pair production.
This breakdown point is at roughly the voltage required to separate virtual particle pairs that come into existence. Suppose a pair of the two lightest species, an electron and a positron, pops into existence for a moment. Before they can mutually annihilate, a huge external electric field pulls them apart and pays the energy debt to create them. The resulting electron flow to the positive terminal and the positron flow to the negative terminal are an electrical current, reducing the potential difference of the field.
This same effect of separating virtual particles via a huge electric field is what the experiment is proposing to measure. Normal matter breaks down long before the required field strength is met, so the only way to create an electric field that strong is via photons, which in a laser pulse all constructively combine to give small regions of space huge electric and magnetic fields.
Just FYI.
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
Oh good. Perhaps these experiments will put to rest arguments that zero point energy is the Next Big Thing(tm).
Proponents of it (at least the ones I've met) won't shut up about it.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I think maybe they should do this on a different planet...you know, for safety and all that. Didn't they learn anything from Star Trek? You don't just go build an Omega particle right next to a bunch of important stuff. You don't rip time and space apart on your home planet either! Seriously, "let's see what happens when we rip a hole in space and time" is NOT a valid safety policy.
Universe to Earth: That will leave a mark.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hopefully we can get Half Life III as a survival manual before this happens.
So what happens if this fabric of the universe ... unravels ... ? ?
Hi I'm from the future (that's how I have such a low UID).
Just letting you guys know that ripping a hole in space-time is a really bad idea.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Under $50 million of well-placed farm equipment and starter seeds would win the "war" on hunger, just like how a hundred well-placed hookers of AIDS would obsolete US Military, but not on Planet Hearth.
Starvation has always been a weapon, and the over-vaccination of a population would vanquish the disease from the wild so that in a couple generations immunity would be lost so the military can refine their hoarded stock of virus into a more effect Germ Warfare agent since it's proprieters need more effective weapons to blame as an Act of God.
do not look at the results with the remaining eye !
If you count the part where you have to rip a hole in spacetime?
-5.
They are trying to electrically polarize vacuum. And physical vacuum can be seen as a dielectric.
Distortion and ripping open of space-time are ultimately a gravity thing and gravity is sensationally weak unless you are near some stellar object.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Not one comment regarding the "Oscillation Overthruster"? That was basically a laser that blasted it's way into the 8th dimension, taking our hero Buckaroo Bonzai along for the ride :)
What ever in the realm of sci-fi or even euro-sci-fi could ever make them think this is a good idea? This sounds like the beginning of the plot of some stargate episode that ends up with Daniel Jackson getting killed in the rift and having to get picked up by the doctor and go back in time in the Tardis to tell the world something they should have already guessed if they were paying attention the previous 5 seasons, this is a bad idea.
Except on Earth, instead of Phobos.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
As I'm reading this there are are 226 comments on this article. NOT ONE addresses the issues presented, examines the math, argues on the merits. It's all about whim and whimsy, and talking points. Kids, I am dissapoint.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
According to a couple of quick calculations i've just performed, this will not work.
E!=mc2
Christ... I'd love to see some discussion on how they are going to store that much energy. To my mind it seems more like science fiction then the actual hole-in-spacetime part of the experiment.
nuf sed
it's czech republic and i live there, you insensitive clod!
when he said "...tear the mask off nature and stare at the face of God.."?
Headlines today:
Entire toba-toba planet was vaporized by an un-identified blast of energy. No survivors reported. The mani-popa system has called this an attack on the alliance by the laser-crazy and sworn retribution. This could plunge the entire galaxy into a descrtructive war.
First the shear amount of dumb laser jokes is astounding. It seems very few people bothered to read any of the other posts or bothered to consider that maybe someone else on Shashdot had ever seen Austin Powers. Or Star Trek. Or your favorite SF series here. Real herd behavior in action.
Next, the number of people whining about 200 PETAWATTS!!!!!! was really sad. Are the posters hear actually that ignorant about the concept of instantaneous power values and pulsed power systems? I am surprised by this level of technical ignorance.
Also, does anyone seriously think that a project of this size would be approved without an air tight argument that the experiment will operate in a domain where there are likely to be measurable results? Is it even vaguely possible that physicists picked "200 petawatts of power at a target for less than a trillionth of a second " by guessing? They have a well reasoned case to do the experiment, and part of this is a way to measure the results. But many of the post deride the practicality of the experiment, and even make specific statements that it won't work and that key measurement components are nonexistent. All based around a badly written publicity piece and their extensive personal knowledge of ultra high powered lasers and the mathematics of virtual particle production in the ground state of the space-time vacuum.
The worst and most puzzling part is the shear amount of hostility shown towards science. Assuming that it pork spending, saying it useless, that it can't show anything interesting, that the resources would be better spent somewhere else. All without a shred of logic or reference to any external source. This is the kind of anti-intellectual crap I expect from Fox News, not Slashdot readers. All I see here is a few true nerds surrounded by a bunch of fakes who either express their ignorance directly or try and hide it by making a ridiculous hostile comments.
Why is Snark Required?
Hopefully this Laser will open a rift where this 'cosmonaut' moron disappears into.
He also deserves the preposition at the end of the sentence.
I suspect what they will find is that they just wasted billions of monies on a laser that doesn't achieve anything...
Maybe I'm getting old, but wouldn't we be better off spending $1.6B educating, feeding, and homing people? I feel the same way about manned space flight. I'm not saying it has nothing more to offer us, but as a benefit to mankind, the cost/benefit ratio doesn't look good.
surrounded by a bunch of fakes who either express their ignorance directly or try and hide it by making a ridiculous hostile comments
Brilliant ending to that ridiculously hostile post.
Life is great! (as told by Lady Susan)
An almost excellently angry rebuttal to most of the ignorance displayed in the comments.
One problem: the definitions of sheer and shear (look it up, irony?).
You will then have sheared away your sheer ignorance of these homonyms.
I totally agree. It doesn't help that slashdot has one of the worst over engineered comment systems I have ever seen.
Are the posters here actually that ignorant
He's right though. I go through phases of not reading the comments on science-related articles here for that very reason - the general level of commentary is awful. Sure, not everyone has the knowledge and/or experience required to comment meaningfully, but it would be nice if they would refrain from doing so.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
sheer*
We're not banging rocks together over here. We know how to make a quantum space hole.
Wow, tastiest bit I've read on slashdot lately.... Very on point...
btw spelling/grammar is vital in making an intelligent argument..... hear=here?
Finally, you might want to look into mixing decaf with your beans man...... most people, even slashdot readers, have little to no concept of "instantaneous power values and pulsed power systems", be serious...
pack up a phatty and change the channel lol
And you, look up shear vs sheer
"Are the posters hear actually that ignorant about the concept of instantaneous power values and pulsed power systems?"
I am a physics teacher, so I bet I'm not "that ignorant". Also, I know the difference between "hear "and "here ". Scotty, beam this moron out of HERE.
And you've only worked this out... now?
Sheer amount of hostility
"200 Petawatts" is nothing compared to the gigawatts required to power a time traveling Delorean!
I take it you are new to Slashdot. I tried in the past to point out when micro-hole experiments were claimed to potentially end the world that a black hole can't eat much if the initial mass is low. I got a zero mod for those comments. No one here cares about the physics, most on this site learned physics watching Star Trek. There's zero risk but hey there's always the "what if" scenarios. We're talking a brief pin hole in the Universe that would go unnoticed if they didn't have millions of dollars worth of instruments pointed at it. You might as well say since lightning produces anti matter the world will end during the next thunderstorm. Earth shattering events go unnoticed every single day and that's the real truth.
What did you expect on slashdot nowadays?
They go "PW PW PW!"
The concentrated puerility of multitude of slashdotters enabled you to produce a virtual article. Maybe you should actually be grateful :)
There you go making it all complicated again.... :(
What? My userid is NOT the number of women lusting after me? So it is the number of times I will have sex sometime in the future at least right? Right?? RIGHT?!?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Oh wow, Steins;Gate all over again...
We don't need a second season, because it's already airing... in real life...
It's remarkably annoying that you can't spell "sheer".
Earth is rotating around its axis and orbiting the sun. The moon, as well as other things, add a little wobble to the Earth's movements. We are moving through space-time. If they are focusing the lasers and reading data from a very small point in space-time, will they be able to get accurate results when we are moving so quickly? If they are studying a very tiny point in space-time, even if the observations last a fraction of a second, the earth could have still moved beyond the area in which they are measuring results.
Note: I do not know jack about physics... this is just an idea.
Parent is so funny read in a Sheldon Cooper voice :p
First the shear amount of dumb laser jokes is astounding. It seems very few people bothered to read any of the other posts or bothered to consider that maybe someone else on Shashdot had ever seen Austin Powers. Or Star Trek. Or your favorite SF series here. Real herd behavior in action.
If you think this is bad, take a stroll over to the quantum mechanics stories and see how many uncertainty principle jokes you can find.
2 archaeologists talking:
- "wow, this data fragment found is over 1 billion years old"
- "I know, it was discovered on a 3rd planet in a solar system in the spiral galaxy called (translated): "dumb fucks". The planet has a moon that is the same size - we don't think this is a natural occurrence. Our scientists think that the planet used to be much bigger and some cataclysmic event happened that ripped it apart."
- "Hmmmm, the data fragment is binary, let's run it through the translator....."
- "Something about "Slashdot..... the ELI going online, blackhole, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions" and then there's nothing more..
- " hmmm strange. Oh well, throw it in the garbage and let's get to some fun stuff...."
I think you'd be happier with a site that had a smaller audience. Perhaps an audience of one.
Are the posters hear actually that ignorant about the concept of instantaneous power values and pulsed power systems? I am surprised by this level of technical ignorance.
Are you ignorant in elementary spelling and grammar?
While I was looking up puerile, I noticed that you used shear instead of sheer (twice) and hear instead of here. The fine is 1.37 Internets. Also, I finally found puerile in yo momma.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The thing I don't like about most science advancements is that, regardless of what that is, someone find a militar use for that.
Wont be surprised if when the space-time is conquered, the main use will be to attack and dominate others. No one will find an use in favor of the humanity in general.
Like, instead of putting us all to work for the robots (like it is today), why not put robots to work for us?
Sad.
First the shear amount of dumb laser jokes is astounding.
Someone replaced the sugar for your coffee with salt this morning, right? I hate it when that happens.
maybe someone else on Shashdot had ever seen Austin Powers. Or Star Trek.
Really? You don't say. I thought I was the only one who knew about Star Trek. I'll need to find a new thing... Maybe I'll go watch that Star Wars thing I read about. That death star thing should prove to be quite the hilarious joke.
I am surprised by this level of technical ignorance
Are you new here?
badly written publicity piece
By all means, write a better article. I BEG of you, write a better article. I couldn't agree more with you that lousy science articles need to go. But how many scientists are willing to write an article that a layman can understand? There's no time, writing articles doesn't bring back any funding, the public doesn't care, and your peers care even less since they read the paper. Thus you get pseudo-science articles. Hi Reality, nice to meet you. FYI, most people here won't even read the article, and it's been that way for a long time.
shear amount of hostility shown towards science
Have you been sleeping for the past 20 years or so? Science needs to be deliver immediate results to be cool these days. The only people who care about the nature of the universe these days are theologists and to a lesser extent theoretical physicists. Sad, but true.
This is the kind of anti-intellectual crap I expect from Fox News, not Slashdot readers
Slashdot was never the meeting grounds of the intellectuals its readers so gladly say it is. It's always been what it is : a news aggregator with geeks and their terrible terrible jokes. Sure, you've got a few people that are (studying) in this field, and they'll post a meaningful comment every now and then, but most of it is bored geeks with laser jokes. Anything you might think it was in the past is overly optimistic nostalgia.
true nerds surrounded by a bunch of fakes
OMG! Fake nerds. Quick, someone grab the Monty Python tapes. We'll weed 'm out by seeing who falls asleep after we watch quest for the holy grail umpteen times!
Leave now before you post yourself into a heart attack. That's the best advice I'm going to give you. Go read the paper, do something interesting, and spend the time you'd spend here arguing doing something that you feel is productive. You'll probably end up feeling much better that way.
Puerile is currently in the top 20% of lookups on Merriam-Webster.com.
- so 1/5th of all Merriam-Webster.com lookups came from this single comment.
Congrats.
You can't handle the truth.
This Universe is getting old and tired. This site is getting old and tired. Let's do this. Let's tear the Universe a new one.
By the way, can the same tearing be achieve with a nuke I wonder?
You can't handle the truth.
I for one, am a FOX News viewer - ;-)
And I agree with your observations relating to the quality of posts here on Slashdot - seems to be the general direction of such things on the big /. sadly enough.
I'm just as puzzled about the numerous pop-media references (yours included). Simply scanning the default unfiltered comments (50 of 346 right now) reveals two instances of Fox network, one of Dick Cheney, and one general reference to politicians. What do they have anything to do with this laser?
A solution to the global economic crisis - the aliens will fix it.
Thanks for the refreshing slap in the face. Although your post places a lot of trust in government's process of approval.
you know they make products that dillute in water to help with constipation.
This could be used as an efficient implementation of the quantum bogosort
Pew-pew! PEW-PEW!!! ZAP!!!
Way to go Sgt. Buzzkill.
You sir are a big poo poo head.
As you use it, the word is properly spelled "sheer" and not "shear".
These scientists and the ones at the large hadron collider remind me of caveman.
Hand them a bunch of coo coo clocks and they will bang them together to see the insides and try and figure out how it all works.
So all they do is bang a bunch of particles together in the hopes of figuring out the secrets of the universe.
ELY (n.)
The first, tiniest inkling you get that something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.
From "The Meaning of Liff" by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd.
Does it run Jiffy Pop?
welcome to the internet
First the shear amount of dumb laser jokes is astounding.
. Are the posters hear actually that ignorant about the concept of instantaneous power values and pulsed power systems? I am surprised by this level of technical ignorance.
I think you mean "sheer" and "here", rather than "shear" and "hear".
Pedantry deserves the same scrutiny it proposes.
As much as I like Discovery, that was horribly written article. Hernias and Austin Power jokes? C'mon!
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Shear... I do not think it means what you think it means.
1) help their economy
2) if any holes in space-time are to be ripped, well......
3) no plebiscite
Could you at least check your spelling/grammar while you're bawling us all out? You used the word sheer incorrectly twice. Butt-head. Neener neener.
I read Slashdot for the comments, not for the science :)
I love that you use puerile to show your fancy vocabulary and then fail basic grammar throughout the rest of your post.
"Also, does anyone seriously think that a project of this size would be approved without an air tight argument that the experiment will operate in a domain where there are likely to be measurable results?"
Yes I do. I think they have a reasonable argument that the experiment will operate in a domain where their are likely to be results. That is why it is called and experiment. It might fail to get results but that too is a result.
This got me wondering though. At what point in science does a race become advanced enough that they should move some experiments off planet just for sake of safety? This test is not at the level yet but as the energy levels go up and up one has to wonder when having a base on the moon or in the Astroid belt becomes a good idea. See Castle Bravo as an example of what can happen when physics goes wrong.
Like I said NOT THIS TEST but at some point I wonder if it will be wise to build some of this stuff off planet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Your high-horse position would have been more respectable with fewer spelling and grammatical errors.
It is European project, you know. What did you expect ? Be glad it is not done in China, then the comments would be much worse.
About time someone said it.
Seriously, you're going to bitch about people making jokes? Maybe you should step away from the computer and go do something else before you have a fucking heart attack. Unless, for you, being a total asshole is worth dying over.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Agreed. As long as its built in my district, it ain't pork.
The real slashdot is dead. Give up. BTW, I love that you posted this under an account named "Required Snark". Cheers.
know this is how they bored a hole into the Dark Ones prison.
You must be new here.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
My nerd-dom is limited to computers, a biowolf cluster of them. how many petawatts is that?
Are the posters hear actually that ignorant about the concept of instantaneous power values and pulsed power systems? I am surprised by this level of technical ignorance.
Gotta' love a condescending rant with an error like that!
I think you're getting worked up over nothing here...the posters you reference are largely just fooling around. If you don't care for the posts modded "Funny" you can remove them altogether just fyi.
1.21 GIGAWATTS! Great scott!
> ...talking a brief pin hole...
No we aren't. There are no holes involved. That's just typical reportorial hype.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"In today's news, planet Earth is gearing up for their third attempt at the prestigious but controversial Galactic Darwin Award by opening a space-time rift with excess lasers. Their second attempt, the Large Hadron Collider still has some glitches to be worked out. Since their first attempt, what they called the "cold war" ended, Earth has been eagerly seeking new and creative methods of winning the coveted award."
Table-ized A.I.
All this talk about lasers, death stars, sharks...
And no one wondered if this will open up an Untempered Schism?
amen
"Are the posters hear actually that ignorant..." -> "Are the posters here..." Fixed that for you.
Please don't attach it to an van with an oscillation overthruster. We've been there, done that.... Signed John Bigboote
You sound like the sort of fellow who has a high powered laser and an axe to grind. I beg your mercy and forgiveness on behalf of the slashdot crowd.
"They did what?!... Ha ha ha ho ho ho... silly humans!"
I'm so with you on this. I've only been been posting for a while but the cliques on here is unbelievable. If you make mention of thing close to Anti-Apple or Anti-Google (and you had better not mention anything pro-Microsoft), or if you happen to be pro making money off of your ideas you get modded to "bad karma". and your done with being heard since you will forever be scored as 0 and filtered out. I'm now just an Anonymous Coward poster (still at zero but at least nothing more can happen to me) now and really beginning to wonder if this place is for me. I like the news brought up here because it is news that I find fascinating and would love to talk about with giving my own thoughts and ideas and not being eaten by wolves who only want to joke and harrass the people who seriously question or want to learn. Hey /. why don't you have two sections one for the jokes and one for the thinkers and filter it that way so some real discussions can take place about the topic at hand?
But, will we be able to see the face of God[1] ??
[1] Pick favorite god here: http://www.godchecker.com/
Hi Universe, we're gonna rip you a new one!
"shear amount of hostility"
Yes ignorance is a terrible thing. Take pity on the sheep though.
I swear this is the same exact experiment every nerdy Junior Highschooler thinks we should perform. Including myself.
Yes it's true. This man has no dick.
Lighten up, Francis... I read through most the comments and people are trying to be funny.
Also, I wouldn't go around insulting people's intelligence with all the basic English errors in your post.
Don't rip up Space.
I wanted to go there.
This is the kind of anti-intellectual crap I expect from Fox News, not Slashdot readers. All I see here is a few true nerds surrounded by a bunch of fakes who either express their ignorance directly or try and hide it by making a ridiculous hostile comments.
Well said. On here we see so much criticism of something which a LOT OF SMART PEOPLE think is worthwhile.
People in this thread have either been cracking jokes or making ridiculous ill-educated complaints. Humans are building an enormous powerful laser to do cool science. Why can't we just go 'awesome!' for once?
You're pointing out that comments on an internet news article don't appear informed? From your tone one might assume the highly improbable: that you've only recently discovered or at least bothered to read comments on the internet. People speaking opinion as fact is common. More common in the anonymous world of the internet.
Either that or your entire post is an elaborate ruse to make people believe you're new to the internet. This I find to be more believable.
My dad can beat up your dad... I think...
You're obviously in a bad mood. Go suck a dick, I'm sure it'll make you feel better. Besides, you sound like you've had plenty of practice.
No wonder they outlawed powerful lasers on eBay.
Albeit perhaps not all of them are anti-science because of people like you, religion has its role to play, but mean-spirited narrow-minded jackasses like yourself have done more in modern times to harm the advancement of science than the most ardent theist.
Good God man, you remind me of one Chemistry professor I once had. She wanted me to accept that "you're not a scientist if you don't use a pen" as fact. Let's forget that ink is no barrier to forging results. For one thing, the option to make shit up has always existed and is all too easy in those early practice labs for undergraduates. Let's forget that I had hand spasms that she was well aware of and that pencil was a reasonable accommodation that would afford the neatness she demanded in the limited time I had. No, it was her way or the highway.
She was not the only one. I have found many instructors and practitioners of varying disciplines to be indescribably narrow-minded and even stupid in the most literal sense. Most frustrating is the assumption by these individuals that any concern I may share with them is because I am failing to understand their point of view or methodology, or that I simply don't stand a chance to. That I or those with such concerns must not be operating on, or be capable of, their level of thinking. I don't claim to know all, or much of anything to be quite honest, but I am well aware of how people like these are viewed. They're pests.
While the majority of scientists I've come across have been nothing but the most wonderful people when it has come to expanding the understanding of just about anyone, a significant number have not been. Too many scientists are viewed not as the people with any practical chance at advancing humankind, or saving us from our stupidity, but as assholes to be avoided. This isn't to say they don't make fair contributions to their fields. Take Rosalind Franklin, she wasn't know for her kindness. /rant off
Here's my point, you could have written a response that really was insightful. This wasn't. You could have told us how things will work, what the argument really is, directly answered the questions posed by other posters, etc. You could have told us about your own personal knowledge of ultra high powered lasers and the mathematics of virtual particle production in the ground state of the space-time vacuum. You could have made the whole thing digestible for the layman or at least given links to others who have. Instead you attacked and in a matter most vile.
You seemed incensed that people even dared to question the expense. Yes, science needs to be well funded and yes, it isn't always clear what the benefit is, but questioning the expense isn't out of line; and if data is available that would illuminate what benefits may be there, however remote those benefits may be, people have a right to know. You attacked science fiction. I'm sorry, but most of us didn't have our physicist grandfathers to inspire us to explore science, Spock did it for a lot of us. You attacked humor, as if Slashdot should be nothing but the facts ma'am.
In your final paragraph you practically compared us to the devil and then you want to talk about hostility and wonder why people are anti-science? Let me be clear explain things or shut your yap, please. My thanks in advance.
...and also the reason we have not yet detected other Life in the Universe.
The level of comment on the article is puerile (look it up, most of you don't know what it means).
First the shear amount of dumb laser jokes is astounding. It seems very few people bothered to read any of the other posts or bothered to consider that maybe someone else on Shashdot had ever seen Austin Powers. Or Star Trek. Or your favorite SF series here. Real herd behavior in action.
You must be new here.
Ya, I know, herd behavior and all that. I. just. could. not. resist, you feel my pain.
Great, next thing you know they'll be testing out the overthruster at the salt flats.
First the shear amount of dumb laser jokes is astounding. It seems very few people bothered to read any of the other posts or bothered to consider that maybe someone else on Shashdot had ever seen Austin Powers. Or Star Trek. Or your favorite SF series here. Real herd behavior in action.
Get a life. Maybe you'll understand why people have fun one day.
They're trying to make temporary Hawking Radiation, e.g. use lasers to push apart spontaneous particle+antiparticle pairs long enough to detect some of those particles before they recombine and vanish.
So really, "Temporary Hawking Radiation" would be more accurate headline than "Synthetic", but not as catchy.
From the fine article:
It is hoped that the ELI lasers will also be able to pull these particles apart -- not to make them "real" (Ã la Hawking radiation) but to keep them around long enough so we can detect their existence.
you must be new here
Sounds like someone shot 10 high powered lasers -- delivering 200 petawatts of power for less than a trillionth of a second, and ripping open space time -- into your fruit loops.
Wow. Tiny bit 'o hubris spotted in there, mate. No matter.
W
This strikes me as being "Mythbusters science" -- basically just blow sh!t up and see what happens. Maybe we SHOULDN'T try this at home.
The level of comment on the article is puerile (look it up, most of you don't know what it means).
First the shear amount of dumb laser jokes is astounding. It seems very few people bothered to read any of the other posts or bothered to consider that maybe someone else on Shashdot had ever seen Austin Powers. Or Star Trek. Or .
You must be new here .. WELCOME !!
Sooo...are you saying that you don't *want* 200 petawatt lasers on the heads of sharks?
Wow angry. 1 Lasers, starwars = fun, so think about that (i know blasters where kinda like weird railgun lasers but still). Second, they are delving into new territory, that is not well understood. I'm sorry if not every "true nerd/geek etc." has a strong understanding of high powered laser, or even a basic understanding of particle physics, I forgot that no programmers, car designers, or artists are nerds. While I appreciate your contribution a level head would have better conveyed your argument, as opposed to making you feel so vastly superior to your fellow man and upsetting everyone around you.
Your response is the childish one, no matter your use of language or understanding of the topic, because all you have evoked in this conversation is emotion when you are intending for facts.
Also lasers + Sharks = Fun
No, no, I'm sure they're within acceptable limits...
Data's painting is making me dizzy...
sheer
With that Sig? no, no you will not.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Are the posters hear actually that ignorant"
here....(look it up, since you don't know what it means).
If your going to be a dick at least use SPELLCHECK
Anonymous coward is just lol! No really, hilarious!
No one is anti-science so get off your high horse, you asshat. But really, does it make sense to shit in one's backyard? Scientists make all of these damn experiments up in their heads, go beg for public money to make them happen, and don't truly have idea one about what will happen or how it will affect the Earth. It ain't like we got a backup plan if they really do cause something terrible to happen. Just because they haven't screwed the pooch for all of us yet, doesn't mean they should continue to get a free pass. Why don't you take your advanced degree and go do something beneficial for humanity, like flip burgers or cook fries (we all like fries) and then the limit of your harm equation will be burning your stupid ass on hot oil or maybe burning down Joe's burgers instead of melting the planet or placing a long distance call to the inhibitors.
200 Pedo-watts sounds very dangerous for the children.
No one is anti-science so get off your high horse. But really, does it make sense to shit in one's backyard? You science types make all of these experiments up in your heads, go beg for public money to make them happen, and don't truly have idea one about what will happen or how it will affect the Earth. It ain't like we got a backup plan if they really do cause something terrible to happen. Just because they haven't screwed the pooch for all of us yet, doesn't mean they should continue to get a free pass. Why don't you take your advanced degree and go do something beneficial for humanity, like flip burgers or cook fries (we all like fries) and then the limit of your harm equation will be burning your stupid ass on hot oil or maybe burning down Joe's burgers instead of melting the planet or placing a long distance call in the inhibitors. Hey here's an idea, even if giant lasers are cool and all, but fix something instead of waste money.... say spend some effort on finding and developing a nice, clean energy supply that doesn't pollute and can be had cheaply and easily, thereby freeing us from the clutches of the petroleum/coal overlords.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
"The worst and most puzzling part is the shear amount of hostility shown towards science. Assuming that it pork spending, saying it useless, that it can't show anything interesting, that the resources would be better spent somewhere else. All without a shred of logic or reference to any external source."
Preference is subjective, and as such, cannot be defined by objective evaluation of the external world. So, statements regarding value to a person cannot be investigated further. You may be able to watch for behavior or other statements which contradict it, but otherwise you can only assume they are voicing their valuation truthfully. That eliminates any refutation of two of the three claims, and leaves only one statement left, which does make a claim about the external, measurable, objective world: pork spending.
Now, the vernacular is a shifting thing, but unless there is reason to object, lets agree that 'pork spending' is close to the wikipedia definition:
Pork barrel is a derogatory term referring to appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district. The usage originated in American English.
I'd argue that it makes sense if we ruled out the specifics of American bureaucracy and generalize the term a bit. Instead of localization being a function of geography, we could make it a proximity to friends and other connected benefactors of politicians. So specifically, this would qualify as pork spending if it were money appropriated out of general funds the government takes from citizens for the sake of financing the Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility in order to first and foremost secure an income to the bureaucratic leadership and connections. Before I go any further, I'd like to point out two things. First, statements about intentions are very tricky. We cannot say for sure what motivations direct a politicians actions for certain in specific cases like this where it could be one interest or another. Unless we found a voicemail of a bureaucrat joking with a buddy about how he is getting his friends cousin a cushy desk job at some new agency or something, we really can't say. Only praxeological and psychological investigations might help us then. That brings me to my second point, which is in absence of any means towards certainty, what should ones default assumption be. Can we say that it is more likely than not that those involved in securing money for this project have a strong interest in financing their own wallets and their associates? I'd say absolutely. However, it is always a good idea to remember that this is just an assumption.
Hmmm....
"...the shear [sic] amount of hostility..."
"This is the kind of anti-intellectual crap I expect from Fox News,..."
Do tell us about hostility.
Oh my god...
It's full of...
Stray socks and dryer lint!
Ross Youngblood
...'shear amount'...??
btw, we love lasers.
So are you saying that you cant think of 10 ways to more usefully and better spend all of that money?
Are you also saying that "They have a well reasoned case to do the experiment, and part of this is a way to measure the results" "without a shred of logic or reference to any external source"
Why are you so "surprised by this level of technical ignorance"? is every nerd a physicist that they should be experts "about the concept of instantaneous power values and pulsed power systems?"
If you dismount your pot-smoking horse, you might not be so grumpy : ) and maybe a little thoughtfulness and understanding will seep into your character.
This is a great commentary on the state of /. today.
Most disturbing is the comments that are modded up that have absolutely no basis in reality.
Word!
Better hope no one attacks you with a pair of sheers for those grammar errors.
"Allow me to pose a hypothesis. Say, hypothetically, I ... slayed a prostitute during an 8-Ball fueled weekend of debauchery. I know, it sounds silly but bear with me. Would this hole in space-time be a good place for such a hypothetical and now very lifeless body?"
... until the universe segfaults.
Finally the "s" can be replaced for a "u"
hey there elitist asshole. how about coming down from your ivory tower and take some time away from being a douche and researching what it means to poke fun at something?
don't we have to find dark matter first before we get all uppity about its origins???
Didn't the creators of "Gamma World" predict this one? "The 2010 edition introduces a significantly different backstory that attributes the destruction of civilization to the activation of the Large Hadron Collider, which caused multiple realities to exchange features in an event known as "The Big Mistake". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_World) " Close enough.
Yay, logic in a sea of ignorance. Many thanks
I'm buying every laser pointer I can get my hands on and trying this at home!
The word you're searching for is "sheer".
Ooooh. God is gonna be soooo pissed off when he finds out we've accidently burnt one of his paintings.
Apparently, nuclear weapons are not powerful enough. They want a bigger bang. This won't end until we build the big-bang bomb.
Of course, they will have to test it.