Physics Breakthrough: Recreating the Big Bang

[EroticVanilla]

^^^ What does that picture even mean?

[DonDadda59]

it is only a matter of time...

Might as well get used to praying to the B-Meson, that is the one true God

[pete's montreux]

Not to be an ass, but this is really old. 4-5th thread on that Hadron Collider. On a side note, ISH now has It's first Hardon Appreciator, Juggernaut.

Goddamn, I'm funny. Second line is comedy gold.

[~primetime~]

^^^ What does that picture even mean?

it is from the game Half Life...




the premise of that game is that you start in a lab where they have something similiar to a "Super-Collider" or whatever and they end up opening the gate way to another deminsion by accident and all HELL BREAKS LOSE!!!

[EroticVanilla]

Ahhh I know Half-Life but I've never played it. I still on the N64

[macmac]

The last time I felt the hardon collider I was double penetrating the blackhole through her fabric...we call THAT the big bang....


Hihihihihihihi

[miller-time]

So what new innovations could come out of LHC?

popularised interest in science.

[Mista Kool]

Reverse-engineering the universe (doing science) and getting even a small glimpse of the elegance and genius of our Creator sends chills down my spine.

All of these interconnected parts, invisible to the naked eye, working in unison to create our beautiful universe? Praiseworthy.

The fact that we're not only able to comprehend it, but crave comprehending it? Mesmerizing.

The Privileged Planet - Google Videos

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Wikipedia

The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.

[plowking]

So basically it creates a tiny micro black hole, correct? Though destroys it immediately after?

[~primetime~]

what sucks is that whatever this reveals...I guess from the thread title how the big bang starts and finishes (assuming it repeats forever)...will be written in a language that the average person will not be able to comprehend or care about...

once someone reads "anti-matter" that will set off the "okay whatever, there is crazy shit out there that some people figured out but I will never get it"...

hopefully this will spur a bunch of Science Channel specials for all of us who aren't actually scientist to understand it better...

the fact that the only time this thing even comes up for me is by a poster in ISH already shows a lack of public intrest...

[~primetime~]

HL2 really is better than Halo...

[ZeN]

popularised interest in science.

That Waking_Life guy is a dumbass.

[plowking]

HL2 = Greatest FPS of all-time

Agreed. Give Killzone 2 a play though and tell me what you think. Very good game in its own right.

[The Answer]

I hear people on the internet ask all the time..."what's the point of this?" "are there any practical applications?"

It's awesome, unbridled research like this that gave you the network of computers you're connected to right now in order to read this message.

Boomdeyada!

When it comes to matters of knowledge, I too am frustrated when people ask,

[vapid]

When it comes to matters of knowledge, I too am frustrated when people ask, “Are there any practical applications?” It really is a poor question. That’s not to say that it’s a bad thing when our pursuit of knowledge leads to some tangible benefit. On the contrary, it is a great when our epistemic goals coincide with our practical ones. But it is, however, simply a fact about the world that it is better to know than not to know. Indeed, as was argued in Plato’s Meno so long ago, knowledge is intrinsically valuable. We don’t need any real benefits apart from the acquisition of knowledge itself to justify pursuing it.

Let me offer an example from another field, namely, mathematics. There’s an old problem in number theory surrounding Goldbach’s famous conjecture -- the thesis that every even number greater than two can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers. Despite it being deceptively simple to state, a proof of the conjecture has shown itself to be a tremendous challenge to generations of mathematicians. If it were ever proven, like most of what is learned in number theory, we would almost certainly gain nothing tangible as a result. Moreover, virtually all contemporary mathematicians believe that Goldbach’s conjecture is true, so proving that it was true would surprise practically nobody. None of that matters, however. Proving Goldbach’s conjecture would be a great triumph of human reason -- and that’s all that matters here! I want to suggest the same is true of theoretical physics. It is simply good by its own nature to understand the cosmos, and we don’t need any practical benefits to justify bettering our knowledge of the universe. With that said, though, I’m sure that our breakthroughs in physics will lead inevitably to technological growth.

Even with all that out of the way I can still see a plausible objection to this sort of research. Unlike in mathematics, the cutting edge breakthroughs mentioned in this thread come at the cost of the billions of dollars it took to build the Large Hadron Collider. Sure, some might argue, knowledge of physics is intrinsically valuable, but is it really that valuable? They might even frame it as a moral objection: Can we justify spending so much money on scientific research when so many people around the world lack food and basic resources? I admit that the waters get very murky at this point, and I don’t have all the answers.

Yes. Projects of such grand scale need to be attempted in order to continue to push the extent of our collective intellectual ability, and thus potentially bringing progress to our species.

However proving Goldbach's conjecture seems to be a waste of time if we all know it at least applies 99.9999...% of the time.