The God Paricle

**WilliamBlue** · 02-26-2008, 08:18 AM

Sure could use that science section, sigh. Anyway heres the link from National Geographic;

The God Particle

Og · 02-26-2008, 12:28 PM

Neat to see that they can address the nature of the universe for 1% (or less) of the cost of the Iraq war. Speaks a lot about the priorities of america. Back in the 40s and 50s, we were the apex of physical sciences. Now it's going to France.

Glad we didn't let those gays settle down in wedlock in the last election! (/sarcasm)

Og · 02-26-2008, 12:32 PM

Quote:

The cynic might say that there's no practical use for any of this, that there might be other uses for all the money and brainpower going into these particle guns. But we live in a civilization shaped by physics. We know that the forces within an atom are so powerful that, unleashed and directed against humanity, they can obliterate cities in an instant. The laptop computer on which I'm writing uses microprocessors that would not exist had we not discovered quantum physics and the quirky behavior of electrons. This story will be posted on the World Wide Web—invented, in case you hadn't heard, at CERN, by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. Maybe you're reading it while listening to your iPod, which wouldn't exist but for something called "giant magnetoresistance." Two physicists discovered it independently in the late 1980s, with not much thought of how it might eventually be used. It became crucial to making tiny consumer electronics that used magnetized hard disks. The physicists won a Nobel Prize in 2007, and you got a nifty sound system that's smaller than a Hershey bar.

Cool stuff

AB517 · 02-26-2008, 03:12 PM

A shame that this article doesn’t mention how far away from the energies we are away from the “Basic” nature of things it describes. This accelerator will only get us a step closer to the 90% or so of the universe we don’t know.