tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post1664196720230853968..comments2023-11-03T11:32:01.540+00:00Comments on Thought Experiments : The Blog: Big ScienceBryan Appleyardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-20545447056051630422008-04-06T15:52:00.000+00:002008-04-06T15:52:00.000+00:00CERNs web site states that we have not been destro...CERNs web site states that we have not been destroyed by effects of cosmic rays and micro black holes will evaporate.<BR/><BR/>However, cosmic rays travel too fast to be captured by Earths gravity, and Hawking Radiation is disputed and contradicts Einsteins highly successful relativity theory. Collider particles smash head on like a car collision and can be captured by Earths gravity, and Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-12366218226557963072006-12-03T11:11:00.000+00:002006-12-03T11:11:00.000+00:00What a DisappoIntment! I was hoping that all the u...What a DisappoIntment! I was hoping that all the ungrammatical Capital letters would spell a secret message when placed bacK to back!Gordon McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09151162643523937086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-91087781919241524322006-12-03T11:07:00.000+00:002006-12-03T11:07:00.000+00:00I see. Thanks for that Bryan. Will that affect my ...I see. Thanks for that Bryan. Will that affect my no-claims bonus?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-65468593466138792182006-12-03T07:11:00.000+00:002006-12-03T07:11:00.000+00:00"It would take a Wittgenstein, not an Einstein, to..."It would take a Wittgenstein, not an Einstein, to decipher the correspondences between such strange words and whatever residue of reality remains."... http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2483494,00.html<br /><br />What the author of the above piece fails to grasp, although he does earn Brownie points for sharing with us his badge of pride..“a failed intellectual”....so you can be Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-34161375827231505612006-12-03T01:48:00.000+00:002006-12-03T01:48:00.000+00:00Just read your Sunday Times piece on Hawking, Brya...Just read your Sunday Times piece on Hawking, Bryan, as a storm of Victorian-proportions rages in the background. My first thought is that, rather like belief in God, reverence for Hawking actually died some time ago, at least in the UK. An attack on Hawking is therefore rather akin to Dawkins's attack on religion. <br /><br />A colleague I worked with last year, a perfectly intelligent chap in Gordon McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09151162643523937086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-19177219489355422482006-12-02T22:33:00.000+00:002006-12-02T22:33:00.000+00:00It has been suggested that particle accelerators c...It has been suggested that particle accelerators could create mini black holes, but such black holes will 'evaporate' very quickly (if quantum field theory in curved space-time is to be believed), so it probably is true to say that the main danger is the possibility that our own universe may not yet reside in the true vacuum state, and the destructive transition to this vacuum state may be Gordon McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09151162643523937086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-77296192262621282122006-12-02T21:22:00.000+00:002006-12-02T21:22:00.000+00:00I think the real danger, Neil, is a phase transiti...I think the real danger, Neil, is a phase transition in the cosmic background which would flip the universe into a higher stability.Bryan Appleyardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-90219847688144061442006-12-02T21:06:00.000+00:002006-12-02T21:06:00.000+00:00Did I read somewhere recently that this contraptio...Did I read somewhere recently that this contraption could inadvertently create a black hole? Although I didn't get beyond the dust jacket to Hawking's bestseller, I believe black holes are not to be trifled with.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-54742440746299965952006-12-02T20:42:00.000+00:002006-12-02T20:42:00.000+00:00Thank you, Gordon, that is the right name -- even ...Thank you, Gordon, that is the right name -- even then I couldn't say it right. I was taping a House subcommittee -- "Oversight and Investigations," I think it was called. We met in the Rayburn Bldg. and this would have been June or July of 1992 because we left D.C. for Phila. in August.<br /><br />It was pretty clear during that subcommittee meeting that money had been squandered and that a Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-9343226871391603102006-12-02T17:38:00.000+00:002006-12-02T17:38:00.000+00:00That's interesting, Susan, I didn't realise that t...That's interesting, Susan, I didn't realise that there was some form of financial impropriety associated with the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC). <br /><br />When the project was given the go-ahead in 1987, the estimated cost was around 4-6 billion dollars. By the time of its cancellation in 1993, the estimated cost had risen to 10-12 billion dollars. 2 billion dollars had been spent, and Gordon McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09151162643523937086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-45097566529922156972006-12-02T15:46:00.000+00:002006-12-02T15:46:00.000+00:00If America seems to have lost interest in this, it...If America seems to have lost interest in this, it's probably because of the disastrous "Supercolliding Superconductor" that Congress gave gazillions to some Texas contractors to develop in the late '80s/early '90s. They didn't develop it; they absconded with the bucks. <br /><br />During my very brief stint as a Congressional court reporter in D.C., I recorded the session where various members Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-54469566314582292432006-12-02T13:23:00.000+00:002006-12-02T13:23:00.000+00:00Just because we don't know what something is for, ...Just because we don't know what something is for, doesn't mean it is useless. There is a button on the dashboard of my car which I'm not sure does anything at all. At least when I press it nothing seems to happen. But I trust Nissan not to have put it there to confuse people like me who can't be bothered to read the manual. I think I'll just put my trust in the physicists on this occasion, Bryan.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-57265060976539353682006-12-02T11:59:00.000+00:002006-12-02T11:59:00.000+00:00Indeed, the LHC should yield some fascinating resu...Indeed, the LHC should yield some fascinating results. The standard model of particle physics employs a hypothetical flying buttress called the Higgs boson to unify the weak and electromagnetic forces. Particle physicists in the 1990s didn't find the Higgs boson at the energies they were expecting to find it at. If the LHC does find it, then it will be the final triumph of the standard model; if Gordon McCabehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09151162643523937086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-44573344105498000422006-12-02T10:52:00.000+00:002006-12-02T10:52:00.000+00:00Fair point, Ursa (Minor), except that there's noth...Fair point, Ursa (Minor), except that there's nothing comforting about my confusion. But the important point is that in comparing this science to theology I am not insulting it in any way. I rate the terms of theology very highly and I think to see this quest as continuous with the theological speculations of the past is to honour. I know scientists tend not to see it this way. And, if the Bryan Appleyardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08276787058430388582noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23400750.post-70563319970743527652006-12-02T10:26:00.000+00:002006-12-02T10:26:00.000+00:00The LHC is the latest in a line of experiments exp...The LHC is the latest in a line of experiments exploring the structure of matter, which stretch back over a century, and which have so far yielded television, X-ray medicine, transistors, microcomputers and thousands of other things that have transformed our lives for the better. What is the LHC for? To continue that work, expand our understanding and very probably transform the lives of future Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com