Large Hadron Collider Test

[Kalvaer]

The Higgs doesn't want to be found

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp

 

[Scream]

The Higgs doesn't want to be found

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hp

I came across a similiar article and I rate it's a pretty fascinating theory:

Explosions, scientists arrested for alleged terrorism, mysterious breakdowns — recently Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has begun to look like the world’s most ill-fated experiment.

Is it really nothing more than bad luck or is there something weirder at work? Such speculation generally belongs to the lunatic fringe, but serious scientists have begun to suggest that the frequency of Cern’s accidents and problems is far more than a coincidence.

The LHC, they suggest, may be sabotaging itself from the future — twisting time to generate a series of scientific setbacks that will prevent the machine fulfilling its destiny.

At first sight, this theory fits comfortably into the crackpot tradition linking the start-up of the LHC with terrible disasters. The best known is that the £3 billion particle accelerator might trigger a black hole capable of swallowing the Earth when it gets going. Scientists enjoy laughing at this one.

This time, however, their ridicule has been rather muted — because the time travel idea has come from two distinguished physicists who have backed it with rigorous mathematics.

What Holger Bech Nielsen, of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, are suggesting is that the Higgs boson, the particle that physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be “abhorrent to nature”.

What does that mean? According to Nielsen, it means that the creation of the boson at some point in the future would then ripple backwards through time to put a stop to whatever it was that had created it in the first place.

This, says Nielsen, could explain why the LHC has been hit by mishaps ranging from an explosion during construction to a second big bang that followed its start-up. Whether the recent arrest of a leading physicist for alleged links with Al-Qaeda also counts is uncertain.

Nielsen’s idea has been likened to that of a man travelling back through time and killing his own grandfather. “Our theory suggests that any machine trying to make the Higgs shall have bad luck,” he said.

“It is based on mathematics, but you could explain it by saying that God rather hates Higgs particles and attempts to avoid them.”

His warnings come at a sensitive time for Cern, which is about to make its second attempt to fire up the LHC. The idea is to accelerate protons to almost the speed of light around the machine’s 17-mile underground circular racetrack and then smash them together.

In theory the machine will create tiny replicas of the primordial “big bang” fireball thought to have marked the creation of the universe. But if Nielsen and Ninomiya are right, this latest build-up will inevitably get nowhere, as will those that come after — until eventually Cern abandons the idea altogether.

This is, of course, far from being the first science scare linked to the LHC. Over the years it has been the target of protests, wild speculation and court injunctions.

Fiction writers have naturally seized on the subject. In Angels and Demons, Dan Brown sets out a diabolical plot in which the Vatican City is threatened with annihilation from a bomb based on antimatter stolen from Cern.

Blasphemy, a novel from Douglas Preston, the bestselling science-fiction author, draws on similar themes, with a story about a mad physicist who wants to use a particle accelerator to communicate with God. The physicist may be American and the machine located in America, rather than Switzerland, but the links are clear.

Even Five, the TV channel, has got in on the act by screening FlashForward, an American series based on Robert Sawyer’s novel of the same name in which the start-up of the LHC causes the Earth’s population to black out for two minutes when they experience visions of their personal futures 21 years hence. This gives them a chance to change that future.

Scientists normally hate to see their ideas perverted and twisted by the ignorant, but in recent years many physicists have learnt to welcome the way the LHC has become a part of popular culture. Cern even encourages film-makers to use the machine as a backdrop for their productions, often without charging them.

Nielsen presents them with a dilemma. Should they treat his suggestions as fact or fiction? Most would like to dismiss him, but his status means they have to offer some kind of science-based rebuttal.

James Gillies, a trained physicist who heads Cern’s communications department, said Nielsen’s idea was an interesting theory “but we know it doesn’t happen in reality”.

He explained that if Nielsen’s predictions were correct then whatever was stopping the LHC would also be stopping high-energy rays hitting the atmosphere. Since scientists can directly detect many such rays, “Nielsen must be wrong”, said Gillies.

He and others also believe that although such ideas have an element of fun, they risk distracting attention from the far more amazing ideas that the LHC will tackle once it gets going.

The Higgs boson, for example, is thought to give all other matter its mass, without which gravity could not work. If the LHC found the Higgs, it would open the door to solving all kinds of other mysteries about the origins and nature of matter. Another line of research aims to detect dark matter, which is thought to comprise about a quarter of the universe’s mass, but made out of a kind of particle that has so far proven impossible to detect.

However, perhaps the weirdest of all Cern’s aspirations for the LHC is to investigate extra dimensions of space. This idea, known as string theory, suggests there are many more dimensions to space than the four we can perceive.

At present these other dimensions are hidden, but smashing protons together in the LHC could produce gravitational anomalies, effectively tiny black holes, that would reveal their existence.

Some physicists suggest that when billions of pounds have been spent on the kit to probe such ideas, there is little need to invent new ones about time travel and self-sabotage.

History shows, however, it is unwise to dismiss too quickly ideas that are initially seen as science fiction. Peter Smith, a science historian and author of Doomsday Men, which looks at the links between science and popular culture, points out that what started as science fiction has often become the inspiration for big discoveries.

“Even the original idea of the ‘atomic bomb’ actually came not from scientists but from H G Wells in his 1914 novel The World Set Free,” he said.

“A scientist named Leo Szilard read it in 1932 and it gave him the inspiration to work out how to start the nuclear chain reaction needed to build a bomb. So the atom bomb has some of its origins in literature, as well as research.”

Some of Cern’s leading researchers also take Nielsen at least a little seriously. Brian Cox, professor of particle physics at Manchester University, said: “His ideas are theoretically valid. What he is doing is playing around at the edge of our knowledge, which is a good thing.

“He is pointing out that we don’t yet have a quantum theory of gravity, so we haven’t yet proved rigorously that sending information into the past isn’t possible.

“However, if time travellers do break into the LHC control room and pull the plug out of the wall, then I’ll refer you to my article supporting Nielsen’s theory that I wrote in 2025.”

This weekend, as the interest in his theories continued to grow, Nielsen was sounding more cautious. “We are seriously proposing the idea, but it is an ambitious theory, that’s all,” he said. “We already know it is not very likely to be true. If the LHC actually succeeds in discovering the Higgs boson, I guess we will have to think again.”

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6879293.ece

 

[claire.lee]

I actually read the Neilsen & Ninomiya paper. It is.... well, definitely not written by anyone who speaks English as a first language

It's an interesting theory, sure (and personally one I really hope will turn out to be incorrect!) But besides the cosmic rays that Gillies refers to, there's another reason to be cautious with the theory... That is, the human brain is especially good at picking up patterns.

Why is that important? Well, it's very easy to see a pattern between things. There are lots of patterns all over the place. In science we call this correlation - if two things can be related in a particular way, we can say that they are correlated. Their postulated theory, the problem with the LHC last year, and the shutdown of the SSC are correlated.

Now, most such correlations are coincidences... (The decline in the number of pirates and the increase of global temperature is a coincidence I'm sure nobody will argue). The science is in proving causality. I'm almost certain the decline in pirate number is not what is causing global warming. Same thing with this theory - just because there is a correlation, doesn't mean it's the cause.

And their proof... wait to see what will happen? Well, even if the LHC doesn't turn on at all, that still won't prove that this theory is the correct one, to the exclusion of all others. Besides actually capturing an interfering particle that we can prove came from the future, I'm not certain there even is a way to prove the theory 100%.

So... a theory you can never 100% prove is then not a theory... it's a belief.

See my post here for a more in-depth response, with links:
http://cosmicdiary.org/blogs/claire_lee/?p=175

 

[Scream]

I actually read the Neilsen & Ninomiya paper. It is.... well, definitely not written by anyone who speaks English as a first language

It's an interesting theory, sure (and personally one I really hope will turn out to be incorrect!) But besides the cosmic rays that Gillies refers to, there's another reason to be cautious with the theory... That is, the human brain is especially good at picking up patterns.

Why is that important? Well, it's very easy to see a pattern between things. There are lots of patterns all over the place. In science we call this correlation - if two things can be related in a particular way, we can say that they are correlated. Their postulated theory, the problem with the LHC last year, and the shutdown of the SSC are correlated.

Now, most such correlations are coincidences... (The decline in the number of pirates and the increase of global temperature is a coincidence I'm sure nobody will argue). The science is in proving causality. I'm almost certain the decline in pirate number is not what is causing global warming. Same thing with this theory - just because there is a correlation, doesn't mean it's the cause.

And their proof... wait to see what will happen? Well, even if the LHC doesn't turn on at all, that still won't prove that this theory is the correct one, to the exclusion of all others. Besides actually capturing an interfering particle that we can prove came from the future, I'm not certain there even is a way to prove the theory 100%.

So... a theory you can never 100% prove is then not a theory... it's a belief.

See my post here for a more in-depth response, with links:
http://cosmicdiary.org/blogs/claire_lee/?p=175

All I can say is... hectic! I learn something new everyday.

 

[claire.lee]

All I can say is... hectic! I learn something new everyday.

heh, me too! yesterday I learnt how to make the photocopier staple test papers for me

 

[Devill]

When should this be operational?

And can I get a lab coat and a pass?

 

[claire.lee]

Latest news is that they are looking at having beam start circulating again on the 20th of Nov... they'll follow the same thing as last year, beam in one direction, then beam in the other direction, then work up to having it circulating a number of times in both directions. Once they've got that going smoothly, they'll go to low energy collisions, 450GeV per proton, and possibly even ramp up the energy before the end of the year. So we're still on for collisions in 2009!

Heh, Devill, get yourself a ticket to Geneva, and contact the CERN press office

 

[Kalvaer]

That is, the human brain is especially good at picking up patterns.

Why is that important? Well, it's very easy to see a pattern between things. There are lots of patterns all over the place. In science we call this correlation - if two things can be related in a particular way, we can say that they are correlated. Their postulated theory, the problem with the LHC last year, and the shutdown of the SSC are correlated.

And patterns are so important, Claire has told me that one of the scientists working with them at CERN (not sure if its on the ATLAS project though or if she is still even there) is able to she see patterns in everything and is able to work out things quicker than most computers can calculate them and is wanting to look at the tracks on the scatter patterns of the LHC to pick out things to find certain particles just from the images, which the computer programs could miss in their calculations. Here is a video link of her (Cat Demetriades) writing mirror images on a chalk board with both hands.. OT I know but really interesting. I am not to sure but I think somebody mentioned she may be autistic

When should this be operational?

And can I get a lab coat and a pass?

You can sneak into my luggage if you want

 

[Devill]

Latest news is that they are looking at having beam start circulating again on the 20th of Nov... they'll follow the same thing as last year, beam in one direction, then beam in the other direction, then work up to having it circulating a number of times in both directions. Once they've got that going smoothly, they'll go to low energy collisions, 450GeV per proton, and possibly even ramp up the energy before the end of the year. So we're still on for collisions in 2009!

Heh, Devill, get yourself a ticket to Geneva, and contact the CERN press office

Ill try but some how I doubt that will work

Buuuut maybe if I can seduce a hot scientist lady I can make it happen

And patterns are so important, Claire has told me that one of the scientists working with them at CERN (not sure if its on the ATLAS project though or if she is still even there) is able to she see patterns in everything and is able to work out things quicker than most computers can calculate them and is wanting to look at the tracks on the scatter patterns of the LHC to pick out things to find certain particles just from the images, which the computer programs could miss in their calculations. Here is a video link of her (Cat Demetriades) writing mirror images on a chalk board with both hands.. OT I know but really interesting. I am not to sure but I think somebody mentioned she may be autistic


You can sneak into my luggage if you want

Where is da linky!?

Ps Claire and Kalvaer congrats on the upcoming poop machine.

 

[Kalvaer]

Ill try but some how I doubt that will work

Buuuut maybe if I can seduce a hot scientist lady I can make it happen

While that sounds like a crazy idea... It might work. After all, its what I did

Where is da linky!?

Ps Claire and Kalvaer congrats on the upcoming poop machine.

DOH... sorry my bad.

Oh and thanks so much Claire just better make sure that she doesn't go anywhere at CERN that requires her to wear her dosimeter or I am going to kick her butt

LINK:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKTmqX8rjsU[/ame]

 

[claire.lee]

...Claire just better make sure that she doesn't go anywhere at CERN that requires her to wear her dosimeter or I am going to kick her butt

I have a dosimeter on my keyring, though I'm not entirely sure why...

ATLAS control room should be safe as well.

PS Thanks Devill! Yeah, can't say I'm entirely looking forward to THAT aspect of it

 

[claire.lee]

Here's a cool site where you can check out the latest events in the ATLAS detector:

http://atlas-live.cern.ch/browser

Each picture there is a single event, showing hits and reconstructed tracks (particles) in the different parts of the ATLAS detector. It's a bit boring now, as we only have cosmic rays going through there, but keep it bookmarked for Nov/Dec when the LHC starts up again.

The team has asked us all to try it out so they can monitor their server load and iron out any problems before beam comes along, so play as much as you like.

For more info check out:
http://atlas-service-enews.web.cern.ch/atlas-service-enews/2009/news_09/news_atlaslive.php

 

[Geriatrix]

.. is able to she see patterns in everything and is able to work out things quicker than most computers can calculate them and is wanting to look at the tracks on the scatter patterns of the LHC to pick out things to find certain particles just from the images, which the computer programs could miss in their calculations. Here is a video link of her (Cat Demetriades) writing mirror images on a chalk board with both hands.. OT I know but really interesting. I am not to sure but I think somebody mentioned she may be autistic

You should introduce her to Rainman. They can start a whole creche of space Cadettes.

But I can also do the mirror writing thing so I shouldn't judge too harshly. Advanced math though, thats another story...

But seriously, Clair and co. do seem to have the most fascinating jobs, I wish I could join them to smash stuff together.

 

[TooFastTim]

I wish I could join them to smash stuff together.

Nah, Clair's just the morbid onlooker, picking through the pieces after the fact. It's guys like me that get to do the smashing. Smashing job too <sorry>.

Nowadays accelerators are built by engineers. Physicists spec' what they want, politicians decide what they'll get and engineers build it.

 

[Kalvaer]

I'm an engineer and I'd love rubbing that into their faces

Though I while I would love to, It is them who give us the ideas. While they might not know the technical details behind how it works, without them "telling" us engineers what to build in the first place, we'd all be sitting on our butts.

At least the experimentalists, The silly theorists just sit in their offices all day thinking of mathematical formulas to put reasoning behind their last LSD trip

 

[TooFastTim]

I'm an engineer and I'd love rubbing that into their faces

Though I while I would love to, It is them who give us the ideas. While they might not know the technical details behind how it works, without them "telling" us engineers what to build in the first place, we'd all be sitting on our butts.

At least the experimentalists, The silly theorists just sit in their offices all day thinking of mathematical formulas to put reasoning behind their last LSD trip

Chris, do a google on EJN (Ted) Wilson on the CERN site and look for video lectures. There's three particle accelerator schools, US, UK and CERN (of the three the CERN is the weakest. Both USPAS & the Adams school make their lecture material available on-line.).

Wilson is pretty scathing of theoretical phycisists and, in the first lecture, he asks who is whom on the course, phycists, engineers, school kids (really!), etc. The vast majority are engineers.

Presently I'm on 4 committees for building new accelerators. The politics is, um, interesting.

 

[BigAl-sa]

Nowadays accelerators are built by engineers. Physicists spec' what they want, politicians decide what they'll get and engineers build it.

The engineers don't build it, they design it - the technicians and the tradesmen build it

Wilson is pretty scathing of theoretical phycisists and, in the first lecture, he asks who is whom on the course, phycists, engineers, school kids (really!), etc. The vast majority are engineers.

He can be as scathing as he likes, but without the theoretical physicists there to theorize about the possiblity of something being there, how are you going to discover something you don't know exists?

 

[Kalvaer]

The vast majority are engineers.

I've hardly ever seen Qualified Physicists go on courses. The go to tons of conferences and sit in EVO meetings all day, but otherwise they believe the know everything anyway so they wouldn't bother with a silly course (Claire... I'm kidding )

The engineers don't build it, they design it - the technicians and the tradesmen build it

Arrgg,,, that would be true. But at least I still go and get my hands dirty and help with the building and repairing where I can in my field.

He can be as scathing as he likes, but without the theoretical physicists there to theorize about the possiblity of something being there, how are you going to discover something you don't know exists?

Easy.. just give the LSD to the experimentalists

 

[TooFastTim]

The engineers don't build it, they design it - the technicians and the tradesmen build it

He can be as scathing as he likes, but without the theoretical physicists there to theorize about the possiblity of something being there, how are you going to discover something you don't know exists?

I yield to your superior knowledge.

 

[Arthur]

Now here's a bizarro story: Large Hadron Collider is 'being sabotaged from the future'.

SCIENTISTS claim the giant atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being jinxed from the future to save the world.

In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim the LHC startup has been delayed due to nature trying to prevent it from finding the elusive Higgs boson, or "God particle".

It seems some scientists have lost all sense of reality and become totally unhinged.