On hadron colliders, dark matter and black holes

[RPMiller]

Sweet! Going out with a bang is always a good idea.

[torstan]

Sorry for relative silence recently - in the middle of 2 international moves and a wedding, will be posting more regularly during October when I have internet in new home in NY!

New study out relatively recently on LHC safety: http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3414.

My favourite quote from the abstract:
"Any microscopic black holes produced at the LHC are expected to decay by Hawking radiation before they reach the detector walls." (my emphasis)

So that's okay then

[Robbie]

So...are you moving to NY because you have a new job not working on the LHC or are you moving to NY because you're fleeing the imminent danger of a black hole sucking in all of EU?

[torstan]

New job, still working with the on dark matter at the LHC. You lot funded it too I'll be at NYU for one year for sure and hopefully a couple more. I guess I'll be doing some teaching at NYU as well as research. Should be fun! Though knowing my luck NY will stand up to its Hollywood reputation of being ground zero for most major disasters and the New York collider - RHIC (Relativistic heavy Ion Collider) - will produce a black hole from colliding gold atoms....

[Badger]

congrats on the move and job and all that.... travel safe and hurry up with the maps you know we all can't wait for your next big map

[RPMiller]

Looks like all systems are a go: http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-217914.html

[Badger]

Looks like all systems are a go: http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-217914.html

"I got a baaad feeling about this..."

First star wars quote has been noted @ 1:20 pm Sep 2, 08

[Valarian]

Any Black Holes or rips in the space-time continuum yet?

[torstan]

Not yet, but then they just* sent a small bunch of protons a hop skip and a jump around the ring - 3km of a possible 27km. No collisions yet. The test was done to see whether the little ring (the SPS) could throw a bunch of protons into the bigger ring without the bigger ring fumbling the catch. Now think how much difficulty the American relay teams had doing this stuff last week (yes, the Brits screwed it up too, but I can't say I expected much more...) and this one has to be done with sub-microsecond precision. That was definitely a non-trivial manoeuvre and they deserve a lot of credit for managing it first time.

It'll be interesting to track the large number of 'End of the World!' stories as a function of how close we get to the LHC start next week (note that there will be no collisions for a while, and they will be low energy when they start).

Here's my first contribution:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...d-halt-it.html

If you get any, post them here.

*For a given value of 'just'

[RPMiller]

Here's my first contribution:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...d-halt-it.html

So do whack jobs like that get stripped of their scientist badge or anything? I mean I have to think that everything you've pointed out thus far is in the scientific norm and can't understand how anyone calling themselves a scientist wouldn't know this stuff. Maybe I'm missing something?