This is the mother of all particle colliders! I'm talking about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This was big news a month ago. You could not turn on the television without hearing something about this crazy science experiment.
- It went online on Sept 10, 2008.
- It had some crazies fearing it would create a black hole that would devour the planet.
- It had it's own Large Hadron Rap video on YouTube.
- It brought fond memories of the classic intro from Out of This World (aka "Another World")
- It brought more recent memories of Black Mesa's resonance cascade from Half-Life.
- It allowed you to say "boson" without people snickering in the background.
- It even rekindled my interest in particle physics. I was reading "A Brief History of Time" on my subway ride to work for a week!
What's happening now? No apocalyptic black holes. No paradigm-shifting discoveries. No mention of LHC on the news. Show me the hadrons, LHC.... SHOW ME THE HADRONS!*
Well, I'll give you an update. LHC is keeping a low profile because of a mechanical problem. The best physicists in the world were thwarted by a fault caused by a bad Transformer. (I suspect it was Omega Supreme.) I won't pretend to understand the technical details, but the LHC is a massive precision instrument, and if two giant magnets are mis-aligned, it's probably a bad thing.
Apparently, the LHC is out of commission for the next month. That puts us into the winter months, and it is anticipated that CERN will not run the LHC during winter because of higher electricity prices during winter. So realistically, we are going to have to wait until Spring of 2009 before they fire it up again. If you thought LHC would destroy the planet with a black hole, then you have a few more months to settle your affairs and spend time with your loved ones.
As for CERN... I expect you egg-heads to get cracking! The only mistakes I tolerate from large-scale science experiments are catastrophic ones that mirror what I see in video games or superhero comic books. Mistakes that result in anti-climatic waiting do not interest me or other members of the public. The next time something goes wrong, you better make it big!
* Thankfully, Google Image Search recognized that my query for "large hardon" was a typo... phew!
Well, I'll give you an update. LHC is keeping a low profile because of a mechanical problem. The best physicists in the world were thwarted by a fault caused by a bad Transformer. (I suspect it was Omega Supreme.) I won't pretend to understand the technical details, but the LHC is a massive precision instrument, and if two giant magnets are mis-aligned, it's probably a bad thing.Apparently, the LHC is out of commission for the next month. That puts us into the winter months, and it is anticipated that CERN will not run the LHC during winter because of higher electricity prices during winter. So realistically, we are going to have to wait until Spring of 2009 before they fire it up again. If you thought LHC would destroy the planet with a black hole, then you have a few more months to settle your affairs and spend time with your loved ones.
As for CERN... I expect you egg-heads to get cracking! The only mistakes I tolerate from large-scale science experiments are catastrophic ones that mirror what I see in video games or superhero comic books. Mistakes that result in anti-climatic waiting do not interest me or other members of the public. The next time something goes wrong, you better make it big!
* Thankfully, Google Image Search recognized that my query for "large hardon" was a typo... phew!
2 comments:
Slander! Omega Supreme is the last line of defense! Now if you said Computron, Wheeljack, Grimlock or Wheelie you might have had a leg to stand on but now your blog is all rubbish! Complete and utter rubbish! Which means that Black Holes WILL devour the Earth!! (next year).
Omega Supreme is not a saint, Dangard Ace. Remember that he was involved in the destruction of Crystal City... a city he was sworn to defend at all costs. Then he went off on a quest for vengeance when he should have been saving San Francisco. I'd also like to mention that he was conveniently missing during the events that caused the deaths of many of the G1 Autobots. Co-incidence?
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