Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an authority on the topic, I just thought I'd share my musings for any who may be interested

I'm extremely surprised that none of the physicist could give a remotely satisfactory answer to the beam-hand interaction question. I realise that the energies involved are extreme so weird things may happen and they obviously specialise in more fundamental aspects of the physics but I would have expected all of them to know at least a little bit about the physics of interactions between charged particle radiation beams with solid objects or water.

I only learnt a bit about proton beam therapy used in radiation oncology during my Masters in Medical Physics, and I'll admit I've forgotten a lot of it and can't remember all the calculations or parameters involved, but it seems to me like this would be a similar although perhaps more extreme case. Ultimately you would be receiving some dose of ionising radiation, the amount would depend on various things.

As solid as our hand appears to be it is still mostly empty space on an atomic scale, and there is a very high likelihood that protons in the beam will not collide with anything as they pass through. This is particularly true at very high energies, I forget exactly why... either due to momentum or the time spent in close enough proximity with atomic nuclei or something, but protons interact relatively weakly until they lose enough energy through the few interactions that do occur, at which point the likelihood of further interactions rises exponentially dumping all the remaining energy very rapidly. It is interesting to note here that at medically relevant energies 100-200Mev (17-35 thousand times lower than the LHC) this energy dump requires between 5 and 20cm tissue for the initial slow down to take place before the beams slow enough to dump the bulk of their energy. Your hand is at most a few centimetres thick and barely sufficient enough to do this at 100MeV let alone 3.5TeV. Graph which illustrates this.

Anyway, energy from the beam would be deposited due to some deflections and collisions and result in ionisation of some atoms either directly by collisions or indirectly by xray/gamma rays produced in the interactions. The few direct collisions between protons in the beam and atomic nuclei would also likely result in exotic particles and radiation further contributing to the dose you receive.

Other things to consider are whether the protons that shoot through your hand are still following sensible enough trajectories for the LHC to bend them around for another pass. At near light speeds they would be shooting around the LHC many thousands of times per second so even if the chances of interactions occuring in your hand are slim, each proton that manages to make another pass rather than shoot off on a random path that takes it out of the LHC, will have many opportunities to interact and deposit energy.

So depending on just how many protons are in the beam, and how much energy they dump into your hand, the effect could be anywhere from increased chance of cancer to a radiation burn of some sort if not a hole in your hand (although I suspect that most extreme scenario is unlikely).

All of this assumes my understanding isn't completely void at the energies involved which, if it is, may explain why the physicists didn't mention any of this.

[redacted]

Oh that question has been answered for a long time!

As soon as you can tell me what the half-life of a proton is!

/subtle for non-nerds, I'll be here all night!

Ghostbusters is definitely a game I want to get, but will be doing so on the Wii so my kids can enjoy it too, I hardly get a chance to play games on my PC anymore, so I'm finding I get much more time to play if it's on the Wii with the kids... Plus there's something about using the Wii Remote as a Proton blaster that appeals

>> ^Almanildo:
>> ^spawnflagger:
I wonder what his take on antimatter/dark-matter is? Is it something which is being created in the LHC?
Dark matter isn't being created in any human experiment yet.
When matter/antimatter is created, what happens is merely that energy goes from one form (kinetic energy in particles) to another (rest mass of matter). The same would go for dark matter if it was ever going to be created in an experiment.


Sorry Almanildo, you are right. The LHC is not yet creating dark matter, but that is one of the aims:
"We need to study dark matter directly by detecting relic dark matter particles in an underground detector and by creating dark matter particles at accelerators, where we can measure their properties and understand how they fit into the cosmic picture."
from:
http://www.uslhc.us/LHC_Science/Questions_for_the_Universe/Dark_Matter

So, how would the law of conservation of energy apply to dark matter and dark energy?
Current theory states that dark energy is homogeneous and makes up 70% of the universe (with visible matter being 4% and dark matter 26%). I realize at the LHC they have only regular energy to use...

LHC is supposed to start back up on Feb 15th, and the proton beams are expected to reach 99.9% speed of light on December 21st 2012. (lol, just kidding. it's actually slated for sometime in 2011).

I can already see the sweatshops, millions of Tiawanese children dismantling lithium, paid by the proton.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'hadron collider, electrons, protons, quarks' to 'hadron collider, electrons, protons, quarks, Nima Arkani Hamed, Physics' - edited by eric3579

Energy Density, Wave Function Densities, The Fractal Nature of groups exploring their harmonics.

There is the SpaceTime Continuum, but its only inhabitant is Energy ! It's all Energy !
(tell me, what in this world is not reducible down to its most basic level as being just energy ?)

Energy manifests itself in 4 States:

1. The Radiative State - the EM spectrum of radiations: which move at the Ratio of Space to Time; otherwise known as the Speed of Light, but as Dobson says, "It isn't a speed of anything at all, it's the Ratio of Space to Time." Things are set-up that way from the outset. Light doesn't move at a 'speed' it moves at the Ratio of the Space-field to the Time-field when they overlap each other in forming the SpaceTime Continuum thru which it moves as we observe it.

2. The Special State called Matter - that Energy has the ability to assume. How Energy can assume the special state we call matter isn't understood yet, but it does. Protons and Electrons, and their still mysterious combination, the Neutron. For a neutron will spontaneously devolve into a proton and an electron in about 15 minutes if left unattended and not in an atomic nucleus.

3. The Electrical State - usually a flow of electrons, but sometimes protons. Electricity behaves in different ways than matter does, even tho it is made of the same 'particles'.

4. The Field State - the Electric Field and the Magnetic Field. Magnetic fields can permeate solid matter as if it wasn't there !, suggesting to my mind that it is perhaps partially in another 'dimension' simultaneously with this one. (not the best way to say it, but it's a start)

And another thing ! "Consciousness has an adjacency with the physical world, not an overlap."
I'm not fully able to explain or yet understand the implications of this statement, I need to ask Paul Dirac about it.

I'm starting to get tired of Yahtzee. Sure he's ball-busting funny at times and has taken the place of Dennis Miller with all the esoteric references and other errata, but he's gotten too "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't" for me. For this example, the game revists the old areas of the movie and faithfully recreate the proton streams, he bitches. If the game didn't do those things, he'd bitch because it didn't. I guess he's figured out that sells to his angst-ridden fanbase, so milk it for all it's worth.

Zzzzzzzz.

Dear LORD, fire up your fucking proton packs!

I haven't laughed so hard at anything in months as at that sudden stabbing of the remote up his own butt, right after he "comes out of the closet". It's as if in that moment he just wanted to rebel and the best way to rebel in his subconscious mind is to go take some dick up the ass. If it's fake, then it's one of the most genius pieces of comedy ever written and performed. If it's real it's so goddamn funny that I think my head is going to explode.

I withheld my vote right until the end because I wanted to see if this was fake. I don't think it's fake. The kid recording seems genuinely thrilled that he's about to ruin his brother's life. That's his wireless webcam right? Or did he just start recording on his brother's webcam and run out of the room?

By all means, alert us when it's released.

I see a lot of reactionary viewpoints about spirituality and science that just don't make sense to me. It's as if trying to reach the conclusion of some intricate 100-part formulae when we only know the first three parts.

We know that flowers are made of matter, and matter is made of molecules, and molecules are made of atoms, and atoms are made of protons, and protons are made of quarks, and I don't know if we know what quarks are made of yet, but you better know that there is yet another level beneath that, and the one after that, etc.

To say that there is no connection between spirituality and matter is every bit as ignorant as to say that there is. More so, in my opinion.

this was just A.W.E.S.O.M.E,thanks for contributing to this thread my friend.
and remind me never to engage you in an argument.
till next time..
namaste

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
>> ^mentality:

Sure we don't know exactly how the bain is intended to work, but we can still know that smashing in your skull with an icepick will damage your brain. Similarly, we know that certain drugs like meth will damage your brain.

Of course, stopping something from functioning is obviously a worse state than having something functioning, but this example is obviously flawed - and in two ways.

Way the first:
If you beat a brain with an icepick until it stops functioning, that is obviously a worse state of affairs than when you began - but we are referring to percieved 'damage' rather than a cessation of function, so either this isn't your point, or it's an invalid point

Way the second:
There are of course cases of head trauma leading to an IMPROVEMENT of brain function - such as a return of senses (hearing, sight). Also operations on the brain resulting in a businessman becoming an accomplished painter virtually overnight. Just because all icepick-head collisions we've ever seen have never resulted in a brain enhancement doesn't mean that it can't occur, as we can see in these examples that the possibility is there. It just takes the RIGHT KIND of icepick blow.

Science gives us accurate models of how things work. Maybe reality is a lie that God crafted to fool our senses, but that kind of metaphysical argument is the realm useless and neverending bullshit.

No, i think you misunderstood my point. My point is nothing to do with God. It's a scientific idea and i know scientists that agree with me. In fact, i don't think there's a scientist that would disagree because .. well, because it's true. I will have to drastically simplify the idea in order to explain it well here.

If we see a sequence of numbers 3 5 7 - and we think they are a series of odd numbers increasing. We can see that there may be numbers beyond 7, but at the moment we are incapable of identifying it. Time passes, technology improves, then we get the next number in the sequence and it's an 11 and we realise that it's a sequence of prime numbers. Although our system accurately described what we could observe to begin with, the system failed when we discovered something new.

That's all there is to it. As a practitioner of science, you MUST perform experiments with an open mind. To do otherwise is to taint your observations with your own bias and is poor science. Tomorrow, we may find that all our theories are not necessarily the most accurate theories. Continued below...

Pssst: science never claimed that the earth was the center. We know better now because our claims are based on actual fact and observation. Science: 1, Philosophy: 0.

To carry on from above, this has proven true in the past. Theories that were raised showed us accurate results. Then we found a case where they DID NOT accurately predict the results, and we had to throw the theory away and adopt a new one. If you would like to nitpick examples then i will give you a better one - that of the classical view of atomic structure vs. the modern view.

We used to think that the nucleus of an atom was solid, and now we think that it is made up of protons and neutrons. But wait, those again are made up of quarks. Wait, are the quarks made up of strings!?

It is not the goal of science to look into the nature of being. That is the job for religion and philosophy. Stop dismissing science because it cannot answer the unanswerable.

Firstly, i have never dismissed science for not being able to answer the unanswerable. I think you have an idea in your head that i somehow approached this from a religious standpoint and that is your downfall in your 'debunk'.

Secondly, semantics aside, i think science has a duty to look into the nature of being whenever possible. Check out the anthropic principle - i think that's a little bit to do with the nature of being. You could argue it, and i'll accept that, but i still think it does. If it's possible for science to shed any light on the nature of being, then it will, people won't go "THAT'S NOT OUR REALM BOYS LEAVE IT ALONE!" Philosophy is philosophy, and science is science. If the two can help each other out, of course they will, and of course we don't know that the answers won't be helpful to each other

But, of course, that was never my point, i simply reply to it as you raise it

--- Please don't ask me to cite examples, you can find them for yourself ---

>> ^mentality:

Sure we don't know exactly how the bain is intended to work, but we can still know that smashing in your skull with an icepick will damage your brain. Similarly, we know that certain drugs like meth will damage your brain.

Of course, stopping something from functioning is obviously a worse state than having something functioning, but this example is obviously flawed - and in two ways.

Way the first:
If you beat a brain with an icepick until it stops functioning, that is obviously a worse state of affairs than when you began - but we are referring to percieved 'damage' rather than a cessation of function, so either this isn't your point, or it's an invalid point

Way the second:
There are of course cases of head trauma leading to an IMPROVEMENT of brain function - such as a return of senses (hearing, sight). Also operations on the brain resulting in a businessman becoming an accomplished painter virtually overnight. Just because all icepick-head collisions we've ever seen have never resulted in a brain enhancement doesn't mean that it can't occur, as we can see in these examples that the possibility is there. It just takes the RIGHT KIND of icepick blow.

Science gives us accurate models of how things work. Maybe reality is a lie that God crafted to fool our senses, but that kind of metaphysical argument is the realm useless and neverending bullshit.

No, i think you misunderstood my point. My point is nothing to do with God. It's a scientific idea and i know scientists that agree with me. In fact, i don't think there's a scientist that would disagree because .. well, because it's true. I will have to drastically simplify the idea in order to explain it well here.

If we see a sequence of numbers 3 5 7 - and we think they are a series of odd numbers increasing. We can see that there may be numbers beyond 7, but at the moment we are incapable of identifying it. Time passes, technology improves, then we get the next number in the sequence and it's an 11 and we realise that it's a sequence of prime numbers. Although our system accurately described what we could observe to begin with, the system failed when we discovered something new.

That's all there is to it. As a practitioner of science, you MUST perform experiments with an open mind. To do otherwise is to taint your observations with your own bias and is poor science. Tomorrow, we may find that all our theories are not necessarily the most accurate theories. Continued below...

Pssst: science never claimed that the earth was the center. We know better now because our claims are based on actual fact and observation. Science: 1, Philosophy: 0.

To carry on from above, this has proven true in the past. Theories that were raised showed us accurate results. Then we found a case where they DID NOT accurately predict the results, and we had to throw the theory away and adopt a new one. If you would like to nitpick examples then i will give you a better one - that of the classical view of atomic structure vs. the modern view.

We used to think that the nucleus of an atom was solid, and now we think that it is made up of protons and neutrons. But wait, those again are made up of quarks. Wait, are the quarks made up of strings!?

It is not the goal of science to look into the nature of being. That is the job for religion and philosophy. Stop dismissing science because it cannot answer the unanswerable.

Firstly, i have never dismissed science for not being able to answer the unanswerable. I think you have an idea in your head that i somehow approached this from a religious standpoint and that is your downfall in your 'debunk'.

Secondly, semantics aside, i think science has a duty to look into the nature of being whenever possible. Check out the anthropic principle - i think that's a little bit to do with the nature of being. You could argue it, and i'll accept that, but i still think it does. If it's possible for science to shed any light on the nature of being, then it will, people won't go "THAT'S NOT OUR REALM BOYS LEAVE IT ALONE!" Philosophy is philosophy, and science is science. If the two can help each other out, of course they will, and of course we don't know that the answers won't be helpful to each other

But, of course, that was never my point, i simply reply to it as you raise it

--- Please don't ask me to cite examples, you can find them for yourself ---

>> ^Fusionaut:
History of the universe:
.... nothing...BLAAAAM!!! PROTONS NUETRONS PROTONS NUETRONS ELECTRONS

.. that's pretty close from what I've read



Let me put it like this: I understand your concern.

The central point, which was the point of my earlier post, is the fact that, however unlikely, outlandish and ridiculous this all sounds, it is based upon, as far as ANY human being can tell, irrefutable evidence, and lots of it.

A famous example, and a favorite quote-mine among creationists is this sentence from Charles Darwin:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

What creationists always omit, of course, is that this sentence is a build-up and an introduction to an explanation of exactly HOW the eye COULD in fact have evolved by natural selection, an explanation that has, in large part, been confirmed by tests and evidence later.

Anyway, the point is this: I could admit, as Darwin partially did, that the ENTIRE theory of evolution, the thesis that every single animal has evolved from a 3 billion old ancestor and thus ALL life, from banana to bacteria to bonobo and even human, has evolved all from a common ancestor, seems freely to be ABSURD IN THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE DEGREE.

So why do I still accept it?

Because of the evidence. The evidence shows, with crystal clear precision, just like it shows that atoms are real, or that bacteria cause disease, that evolution happened, and that, in the grand scheme of things, we humans are more or less closely related to every living thing ever examined.

And this is also the case for the theories about "nothing...BLAAAAM!!! PROTONS NUETRONS PROTONS.........." Its not that scientists really want it to be this way, or that they have some "something out of nothing" fetish, this is what the EVIDENCE tells us. There simply is nothing in that evidence about a guide or god of any kind, and even if there was, we would have an entirely new, even bigger problem to begin with.

.. did you just suggest cornholing the children?

>> ^Fjnbk:
Make a corn hole, but call it Trench Run or something better than that. The beanbags the kids toss are actually proton torpedoes, and the holes to toss them into are thermal exhaust ports.
This idea isn't very good, but... C3PO Race. The kids have to walk like C3PO as fast as they can. Yeah, not very good.
That's what I can think of now, I'll post some more if they come to me.