Top Secret Pics from Inside CERN
Skepchick reader “NotReallyAlice” has come through with top secret photos from inside the CERN research center, where about four hours ago scientists successfully fired up the Large Hadron Collider.
Of course, it’s a joke — there just isn’t any danger of a black hole destroying the earth. More pics after the jump!
CMS stands for Compact Muon Solenoid, which as you know was Punky Brewster’s real name. It’s one of the four big experiments happening with the LHC, and is located in an underground cavern near Geneva. (The machine, not Punky Brewster. I’m not sure where she is at the moment.)
It’s called the CMS because it’s compact (which should not be mistaken for small, because the thing is honking), it’s optimized for studying muons (one of the sixteen elementary particles), and it has a magnet (known as a solenoid, because it’s a wire wrapped around a hunk of metal).
FYI, billions of particles will be unused. Right now, only one beam of particles is going, but once they fire up the other one and start smashing those babies into each other, they hope to see about 20 collisions among 200 billion particles. Thank goodness they’re recycling.
Find out more about the experiment and see cool pictures of the actual machinery on CERN’s web site. Also, because we live in the age of YouTube, you should head over there and search for the videos coming from the researchers on the experiment. Here’s one showing the successful launch of the LHC this morning:
Big thanks to NotReallyAlice and her truly awesome friend.
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79 Comments
writerdd
09.10.2008
I guess we’re all still here.
Elyse
09.10.2008
@writerdd:
…. or are we?
Andrés Diplotti
09.10.2008
Seeing how we haven’t been spaghetified yet, I’m really looking forward for the first experimental results.
My prediction: The Higgs boson will be detected and found to actually be “God’s particle”, so it will be given the name of theon. Its antiparticle, the atheon, will also be found.
When a theon and an atheon collide, the result is a lot of heat, but no light.
And, if the collision is energetic enough, a new particle is created: the agnosticon, which is composed of an anti-charm quark and a new flavor, the smug quark.
TheCzech
09.10.2008
@writerdd: I don’t think they are doing any collisions yet. There is hope for the doomsayers yet!
Rebecca
09.10.2008
BREAKING NEWS! Scientists at CERN report that Posh Spice got a new haircut. Press conference coming later today.
TheCzech
09.10.2008
@Rebecca: This was caused by the collider? Maybe the end of the world is coming after all!
Gabrielbrawley
09.10.2008
Hurray, I survived another doomsday. I have survived so many that I now laugh at doomsday.
Doomsday “I am here to deystroy the world! Fear me!!”
Me “Ha hahahahah”
Andrés Diplotti
09.10.2008
@Gabrielbrawley: Really, doomsdays are so common that we should include them in the calendar:
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Doomsday.
TheWireMonkey
09.10.2008
No end of the world? Damn, and I maxed out my credit cards assuming I would never have to pay them off!
Gabrielbrawley
09.10.2008
Andres,
I thinik I would perfer to start the week that way the rest of the week would look better.
Doomsday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thrusday, Friday, Saturday.
And it would be a nice present to the fundies, they sit around talking about doomsday on the first of the week anyway.
greenishblu
09.10.2008
“…Compact Muon Solenoid, which as you know was Punky Brewster’s real name.”
Thanks. Now there is coffee on my computer screen…
marilove
09.10.2008
Well, bummer, flickr is blocked at work!
SteveT
09.10.2008
@Andrés Diplotti: COTW!!! COTW!!!
As a former/still(?) agnostic, I laughed my ass off at that comment. That is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a LONG time! Well done, sir!
The smug quark? Hilarious!
Frankiemouse
09.10.2008
watching that short video made me tingly all over.
is it odd that particle physics has that effect on me?
Rebecca
09.10.2008
@greenishblu: Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week! Unless the LHC destroys the planet.
teambanzai
09.10.2008
I look forward to the day when we can identify each partical, mark them, and of course take bets on which one survives the longest. Let’s face it, we’ve got to find a way to exploit this technology for financial gain.
I’m just saying
Andrés Diplotti
09.10.2008
@SteveT: Thank you, sir. Your appreciation is entirely welcome.
jabell2r
09.10.2008
I do sometimes wonder if scientists consider all the possible downsides of their experiments before they perform them.
If you were to successfully create a man made black hole that sucked the universe into oblivion no one would be around to hear what would undoubtedly be the coolest sound ever created.
Rebecca
09.10.2008
@jabell2r: First just as an FYI, CERN did commission a study looking into the possibility that an earth-swallowing black hole could be formed by LHC. So at least in this case the answer is yes, the scientists did consider all the possible downsides.
Second, I like to think it would sound like “FWOOOOOMP” but I admit I’m not sure how close I am. Can any astrophysicists here weigh in on this?
TheWireMonkey
09.10.2008
@jabell2r: sounds like philosophy to me,
“If a black hole is created 300 feet underground and nobody is left to hear it, does it make a sound?”
stereo123
09.10.2008
Light kicks sound’s ass, and blackholes can suck light, so obviously they can suck sound too! Duh!
Kapten Kalabajooie
09.10.2008
Isn’t the button that ends the world supposed to be red, and not the button that saves it? I think it should be blue. Or maybe green. The styrofoam construction and dymo labels are a sad reflection of the lack of funding in science today.
On a more serious note, can sound propagate through an infinitely small, infinitely massive point? Is the event horizon dense enough to propagate sound? Does the smug quark taste like grapeade or Tang? The world wants to know!
greenishblu
09.10.2008
@Rebecca:
Seems to me that whatever sound there would be would be spaghettified to infinity, so “FWOOOOOOMP” would become “FFWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM…”
jabell2r
09.10.2008
Whats the point of destroying the planet if you can’t watch it on youtube?
Wait unless someone else is watching us on youtube.
Now my head hurts, I suck at philosophy.
aclayman
09.10.2008
I’m not an astrophysicist, but I have been interested in this stuff for a while. Even if a micro black hole is created it should evaporate, if the Hawking radiation theory is correct. Under most situations, a micro black hole will have a net loss of mass through emission of Hawking radiation. I don’t know off-hand how big a black hole has to be and how much mass density in its vicinity there would have to be for it to continue growing. The smaller the black hole, then the faster it will evaporate, since the smaller it is, the higher the proportion of the surface area is to the mass or equivalently volume of the black hole. I assume that the experimenters have already worked this out. Also in the beam paths and in the collision area at CERN, it should also be a fairly good vacuum area, since they don’t want the particles that they are accelerating to collide with any stray mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation
http://physics.about.com/od/astronomy/f/hawkrad.htm
exarch
09.10.2008
I wonder how much time it would take such a theoretical black hole to suck up the entire earth.
My guess is it wouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes before the earth’s core was entirely gone and the crust would start caving in. In the mean time, the rest of us might experience weird gravitational changes as the black hole swings around inside the earth, devouring parts of the mantle and core and gaining more mass …
Kimbo Jones
09.10.2008
Ruuuuuunnnnnn yyyyooooou foooooooooooooools….
jabell2r
09.10.2008
I agree with Kimbo,
My left arm just got longer
No wait now it’s my right arm
No wait now………………………………….
MathMike
09.10.2008
I’ve got a soundtrack for today that I’m using as background music in my classroom.
Don’t Change by INXS
Elephant Bones by That Handsome Devil
Galaxy Song by Monty Python
I Melt With You by Modern English
It’s the end of the world . . . by REM
Nothing is Permanent by Brave Combo
Particle Man by They Might Be Giants
Que Sera Sera by Pink Martini
Time Has Come Today by The Chambers Brothers
Time Waits For No One by Ambrosia
Timestretch by Jellyheads
Anyone have any other suggestions?
notreallyalice
09.10.2008
@MathMike: Supermassive Black Hole by Muse!
Rebecca
09.10.2008
@MathMike: Great idea! How about Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden?
MathMike
09.10.2008
@Rebecca:
I did a forceful hand to the forehead over forgetting that one!
@notreallyalice:
I’ll have to find that one!
Thanks to both of you!
Rebecca
09.10.2008
@MathMike: Cher’s If I Could Turn Back Time!
TheCzech
09.10.2008
@MathMike: You gotta have Time Warp from Rocky Horror.
Improbable Bee
09.10.2008
Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, for a nice little reincarnationist spin.
Actually, I’m going with a slight modification of the Douglas Adams theory:
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
I think they did suck the entire universe into a black hole earlier today, but the black hole didn’t want it. (I mean, how would you feel if YOU ate several geriatric rock groups for breakfast, topped off with a bunch of star systems, China, and Kevin Federline’s boxer shorts?) So here we all are again, and it happened so fast we can’t even blog about it.
Prove me wrong, suckers.
Chupacabras
09.10.2008
@ greenishblu #23
“Seems to me that whatever sound there would be would be spaghettified to infinity…”
RAmen!
“El Paso”, by Marty Robbins.
“We’re gonna hold on” – George Jones & Tammy Wynette
I mean, the world is over. Country should rule. Right?
LOLkate
09.10.2008
This whole thread is fabulous.
Gerg
09.10.2008
@MathMike:
Simon/Garfunkel: Sound of Silence or Slip Sliding Away
Jerry Garcia Band: Sitting In Limbo
Widespread Panic: Boom Boom Boom
Medeski, Martin & Wood: End of the World Party (Just In Case)
The Doors: The End
DMB: When The World Ends
Dar Williams: The World’s Not Falling Apart
& for all the CERN doubters: Weird Al’s Dare To Be Stupid
astro_boy
09.10.2008
@Rebecca:
I don’t know what sound it would make, but I do predict that the information and anti-information content of Earth will nearly cancel out. This will leave Black-Hole-Earth’s parting message to the universe (via Hawking radiation) a giant belch.
Improbable Bee
09.10.2008
Woohoo for TMBG and Particle Man!
And we have to add “Star Trekking (Across the Universe)”, even if for no other reason than that it will let us shout “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it!” while we go flying into the black hole together.
Gabrielbrawley
09.10.2008
I think this is the best site I’ve seen on LHC.
http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/
Rebecca
09.10.2008
@MathMike: OH OH, and:
Super Furry Animals: It’s Not the End of the World
@astro_boy: That is somehow very appropriate.
Rebecca
09.10.2008
@Gabrielbrawley: Me too, that’s why I linked to it in the post!
Gabrielbrawley
09.10.2008
oops, I guess I should have checked where that link led.
Gabrielbrawley
09.10.2008
So does this mean we can start shopping for a TARDIS now?
MyNameIsTim
09.10.2008
To an observer on Earth, I bet the sound of the Black Hole Earth (sweet potential band name, by the way) would be nothing but silence.
JanieBelle
09.10.2008
The entirety of ELO’s album “Time”.
dmilligan
09.10.2008
Is there an anti-keys particle? Will a quantum black hole eat keys? I can’t find my keys ever since they turned that damned LHC on.
Have they no humanity?
Augustus
09.10.2008
“Gravity Rides Everything” and “Dark Center of the Universe” by Modest Mouse, although the latter is inapropriate for the classroom.
Andrés Diplotti
09.10.2008
I don’t know what the sound of a black hole would be, but I do know what we’d hear:
“So long and thanks for all the fish.”
Tina
09.10.2008
I’m praying for a black hole.
Spaghettification will only bring me closer to the FSM.
killyosaur42
09.10.2008
“Supertheory of Supereverything” – Gogol Bordellos
“Modern Day Catastrophists” – Bad Religion
Something a bit Norse:
“Ragnarok” – Týr
“The World Died Screaming” – Tom Waits
MathMike
09.10.2008
I’m saving this thread and the many great suggestions for the day they fire two particles at each other. You all are fantastic!
digithead
09.10.2008
“Is that all there is?” by Peggy Lee
notreallyalice
09.10.2008
Another song could be “Anywhere in the universe” by Astronaut Wife.
Can we get an iTunes playlist put together for this?
Rebecca
09.10.2008
@killyosaur42: Gogol, can’t believe I forgot that!
killyosaur42
09.10.2008
@Rebecca: Yeah, well it’s hard for me to forget it as it gets stuck in my head quite frequently, especially because as the LHC has been in the process of getting turned on, I have been reading a book about theoretical physics (Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics) and reading various blogs and news stories that constantly remind me of the song (that and I really like that song).
Appleman
09.10.2008
“E=MC2″ – Big Audio Dynamite.
Clearly the LHC did destroy the world at 0915 GMT and we are all now in hell but have failed to notice. Oh the irony.
Loved the quote from German “scientist” & anti-LHC campaigner Otto Rossler:
“Nothing will happen for at least four years,” retired German Otto Rossler told the Mail. “Then someone will spot a light ray coming out of the Indian Ocean during the night and no one will be able to explain it.”
Four years and counting people. You have been warned.
Wordplayer
09.10.2008
@Andrés Diplotti:
Oh, this SO has to be considered for COTW! That was a riot!
~Wordplayer
Kimbo Jones
09.10.2008
@Andrés Diplotti: lol
Improbable Bee
09.10.2008
OK, that’s twice today that Andrés Diplotti has made me laugh — smug quarks, and the H2G2 reference.
And did anybody else get JUST the first line from that song from the movie stuck from their head? “So long and thanks for all the fish” … and then the songwriter gave up. If the whole thing had been that catchy, it would have rivalled “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” for Earworm of the Millenium award. (I was going to say Earworm of the Century thing, but I guess Monty Python is pretty much last century, thankyousomuch Graham Chapman for dying.)
kookbreaker2
09.10.2008
I never knew Punky Brewster had such magical subatomic powers!
Andrés Diplotti
09.10.2008
Hooray!
ZoidbergAndrés is popular!Andrés Diplotti
09.10.2008
@Improbable Bee: I’ve been humming that song since I posted my comment, and I haven’t even seen the full movie.
MathMike
09.10.2008
@Rebecca:
Cher? That would mean I would hear the song three or four times in one day. I just can’t do it!
MathMike
09.10.2008
And we have to add “Star Trekking (Across the Universe)â€, even if for no other reason than that it will let us shout “It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it!†while we go flying into the black hole together.
@Improbable Bee: There’s Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape ‘em off Jim!
enochthered
09.11.2008
For those of you who haven’t yet seen it, here’s the true story about the LHC:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt1Yo610lG0&feature=related
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=C7EeXTp23Ok
And, on a serious note, here’s the fantastic BBC documentary, The Big Bang Machine, with your rock star host, Brian Cox:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHs7hu9hgKc
Solitas
09.11.2008
Maybe this is what will happen?
Then again, since both Gordon Freeman and The G-Man have been spotted there…
Who knows?
hotphysicsboy
09.11.2008
Why do I have the nagging feeling that we have not heard the last from the black hole fearing psychos?
kookbreaker2
09.11.2008
Awwww dangit,
http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html
Augustus
09.11.2008
@Tina
I think the black hole will make us all closer.
Solitas
09.11.2008
Indian girl commits suicide over ‘Big Bang’ fear *sigh*
Improbable Bee
09.11.2008
@enochthered: Thanks for the funny links! I’m still giggling at the deadpan delivery of “the scientists — Freemasons — same thing.”
Tina
09.11.2008
@Augustus:
I certainly hope we have all bathed.
scepticalchymist
09.12.2008
Great scoop story from inside CERN. Well, I always thought they do something really strange there…
In my personal opinion I would prefer to be “spaghettified” by a strangelet, rather than a micro black hole. You know, sounds cooler to be totally transformed into “strange matter”. Of course, some say, that most people on earth did transform to it already.
At least it is nice to see, that some people find their fun in constructing such an incredible machine, rather than spending their time in worshipping some god. It will get unnoticed of course, that these people at CERN do more for the advancement of mankind than any pope could do.
themadlolscientist
09.12.2008
Andrés Diplotti wins this thread hands down with theons, atheons, and agnosticons!
How Come the Sun by Tom Paxton (also sung by Mary Hopkin)
dcarm
09.13.2008
Only Skepchick would have a “We’re all going to die in a black hole” party… It’s part of why I love you all so much!
planettom
10.31.2008
I went as the Large Hadron Collider for a Halloween party last Saturday, and I shamelessly swiped a lot of the details from NotReallyAlice’s joke.
http://planettom.livejournal.com/235156.html
Note the black hole forming on the back of the costume.
Incidentally, for those who were at DragonCon, I enjoyed the Skeptics Track!
Rebecca
10.31.2008
That’s great, plannettom! I was actually just looking at your costume via a link on Facebook. Superb job. Post the link in the contest thread for a chance to WIN! FREE! CANDY!
http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=3891
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