On hadron colliders, dark matter and black holes

[RPMiller]

Yes it does. I was subscribed to it at one point, but unsubscribed when the LHC went down. Figured it was no longer necessary to be warned if it wasn't running.

[NymTevlyn]

New data from the LEHC (Low-energy home collidor):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-7XwboOx98

[torstan]

That's pretty cool

Here's a shot of someone fixing the magnets:
http://atlas-service-enews.web.cern....photo4_580.jpg

I just love the way you can only just see the curvature of the tunnel.

[Ascension]

That was freakin cool Nym, nice find.

[RPMiller]

...other than the spam-age in the description, yea, the guy definitely knows how to create some very cool special effects. I'm curious what software he used to create it because it is definitely professional grade CGI for sure.

[RPMiller]

We haven't had any news in awhile so I thought I would give it a little bump and also put up a diagram of the ATLAS detector for everyone's amusement.

[töff]

Recently I was pondering (again) the concepts of faith & knowledge, with a view toward the endless (and absurd) "science vs. religion" war. It struck me that black holes are a prime example, on the scientific side, of faith. Think about it: we can't see them. We can't even get near them (assuming they exist). We only assume, because of thought experiments (call it math if you like), that they must exist, because we see some things that we can only explain if there's such as thing as a black hole, with such-and-such characteristics, causing those secondary phenomena to occur.

... does that sound like God?

For the record, I'm a devout atheist (not anti-religion, though!), and I pretty much do believe in black holes, and I pretty much think that the scientific method leads to truth.

But again ... that's faith, isn't it. The "other side" (those of religious faith) are doing exactly the same thing.

[Karro]

Recently I was pondering (again) the concepts of faith & knowledge, with a view toward the endless (and absurd) "science vs. religion" war. It struck me that black holes are a prime example, on the scientific side, of faith. Think about it: we can't see them. We can't even get near them (assuming they exist). We only assume, because of thought experiments (call it math if you like), that they must exist, because we see some things that we can only explain if there's such as thing as a black hole, with such-and-such characteristics, causing those secondary phenomena to occur.

... does that sound like God?

For the record, I'm a devout atheist (not anti-religion, though!), and I pretty much do believe in black holes, and I pretty much think that the scientific method leads to truth.

But again ... that's faith, isn't it. The "other side" (those of religious faith) are doing exactly the same thing.

QFT.

I am both a non-atheist (i.e. I have a strong religious faith) and a believer in science (including such general truths as evolution, which seems to be a particular flash-point among some religionists, whereas I find the concept of evolution to be divinely sublime, and in no way denigrates my existence as a human being). I find both requires a certain type of faith - especially as a non-scientist, per se (as in... not beyond the simple experiments you can run in a freshman college physics class) although I think the nature of that faith, between the two, differs. I think my religious faith is testable, in a "scientific"-like manner, where the testable results are feelings and emotions, and not exactly precisely quantifiable. Scientific faith, obviously, is also testable, but the testable results are precisely quantifiable, and appeal to logic as opposed to emotion. Still, as a human being, I find emotion insepperable from my experience and understanding of the world.

[torstan]

I have to disagree with that (well I would have to wouldn't I ). There are certainly good points in what you say - there's an interesting discussion to be had about the foundation of our belief in the way science approaches the truth. However let's start a little earlier. So to start off with there's a clear difference between the scientific method and religion in that if there are two scientific theories about a phenomena then there will be a test that would tell you which scientific theory is correct or whether neither is correct. In the case of religion, if there are two separate religions explaining a phenomena then there will be no tests that can be done to tell which of those religions is correct as the foundation is purely that of belief rather than empirical test.

The two approaches are founded on separate bases from the start.

Black holes are a prediction of general relativity, which has been experimentally tested (and continues to be tested) against other theories. Also explanations of phenomena using black holes are experimentally tested against other hypotheses for the mass at the centre of galaxies. If it turned out that those tests failed then the scientific community would be forced to give up on the concept of supermassive black holes holding galaxies together. These sorts of changes do happen, and surprisingly often. However the black hole hypothesis has been tested many times and found to be a consistent explanation of the phenomena so it is still our current best description of that reality. That's equivalent to saying that we know they exist.

There's some other interesting stuff going on in this field too, but let's talk about this for a bit first.

[Karro]

snip.

But here's the thing: for us lay-persons who can't actually do science, or sometimes even necessarily understand science... we can't prove or test directly whether any given scientific theory is correct. Those of us who believe in the scientific method/process but can't prove it directly for ourselves have to take it as an article of faith that what those of you who can, the scientists, are telling us the truth. The simple-to-explain parts of it... seem to make sense and jive with what is observable about our world, so we roll with it. In that sense... science, from the perspective of the masses, is exactly like religion, and scientists are it's "priestly" caste.

Most of us approach religion in the same manner - none of us (at least no one I have talked to) has ever seen God/Allah/Deity-of-your-choice directly. Our experience of the world, though, seems to suggest the existence of a higher power... having no ability to test that theorem directly, we rely on the understanding of those who have a greater knowledge of deity.

But you're right, on a macro-scale, we can't prove that one competing religious "theory" is any more correct than another. From my experience, the provability is at a very personal level: do I feel that one religious doctrine is more true than another. It's a science of the heart, but it's very personal. Still... I happen to believe that one particular religious doctrine is the most correct/true of all available doctrines, but I can say that I don't think, logically, that I have the authority to say to another person that the doctrine s/he follows is incorrect - beyond my own personal experience I have nothing to offer as direct evidence of such a statement. So... no... they're not exactly the same... but there's still an overlap in the way we lay people experience it.

That being said: keep up your good work sciencing.