>> ^shuac:
^Point taken...but what's the likelihood that this woman is a big believer in science and demonstrable evidence? You think she's keeping up on LHC news, do you? Can she accurately describe the various theories on why the bees seem to be disappearing?


Don't be stupid. You don't have to be a fucking atheist to follow LHC news.

Asshole.

>> ^shuac:
^Point taken...but what's the likelihood that this woman is a big believer in science and demonstrable evidence? You think she's keeping up on LHC news, do you? Can she accurately describe the various theories on why the bees seem to be disappearing?


And those things are characteristics of <specific sterotypical group>? You can find anti scientific, backwards hicks of every race and religion. Shuoldn't it be clear by now that stupidity knows no bounds?

^Point taken...but what's the likelihood that this woman is a big believer in science and demonstrable evidence? You think she's keeping up on LHC news, do you? Can she accurately describe the various theories on why the bees seem to be disappearing?

>> ^MycroftHomlz:
>> ^charliem:
<insert mammoth rebuke here>


Foot-in-mouth syndrome n)
Characterized by incoherent rambling and spewing of thought stream without regards to the contents of the message.

By "they", I was referring to scientists working purely for exploration research purposes. None of those achievements could be possible without a basic understanding of the underlying principles of how the laws of physics, which govern their operation, work.

They didn't start out with an idea to create an imaging machine without a foundation of understanding field theory, maxwells equations, EM theory etc.

Somewhere down the line, it had taken an exploratory researcher the time and grant money to figure out those basic laws. Without which, we wouldn't have anywhere near the amount of amazing tech available to us today.

Any argument that says "bah, its only theoretical, it cant benefit us at all" and uses it as an excuse to cut/reduce funding, needs their heads examined.

The US spends $12 BILLION US per month on Iraq. Ultimately it will cost in excess of a TRILLION adding up all costs for the 'crusade' then refitting/replacing all the equipment when they eventually end occupation.

The LHC is worth every penny, and then some. At least the scientific community is trying to push human knowledge forward. Money for scientific purposes is well spent. Money for meaningless wars over oil/power is not well spent.

>> ^charliem:
= CERN invented the internet, they invented MRI, they invented the concentrated x-ray for blasting cancer sites, they invented super conductors, as Brian mentioned, they've also come up with a new method of cooling, they've even invented and built a brand new parallel internet with massive capacity and the ability to have distributed processing / applications running over it (google "The GRID - CERN"), they invented the integrated circuit, the transistor (and as a result, PLENTY of other complex digital structures)...


CERN:

1)invented the internet. False, invented at MIT. Though it is true, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

2) they invented MRI. False, it was invented at Stony Brook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging

3) they invented the concentrated x-ray for blasting cancer sites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_Hounsfield

4) they invented super conductors. False, discovered by Onnes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heike_Kamerlingh_Onnes

I don't have the time to debunk all of this. Most it is wrong, half truths, or misguided.
Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN is where you can see there accomplishments.

>> ^HenningKO:
Applied research is for improving the stuff we already have conceived.

That is just foolish. Applied research is not just for things that have already been conceived. This is why so many letters in APL and PRL have to do with a whole host of issues ranging from modeling biological interactions to verifying density function perturbation theory and their ilk in materials research. Absolutely no one would say that CMR was already conceived when von Helmolt published his paper. And only a fool would argue that it is not an applied physics topic.

In fact, almost all of the last Nobel Prizes in Physics have almost entirely been given to people who did practical applied physics, and along the way discovered something fundamental.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Physics

And there is a big difference between saying "you can't study this" and encouraging people to study applied research.

As a physicist, I too think that we put too much emphasis on theoretical particle and condensed matter physics. I would like to see more theorists working on physical biology and materials research.

I am not saying people shouldn't work on the LHC or do theory in these areas. I am saying that we need to take a step and decide not just which problems are the most interesting, but which problems need solving. And we can start by strategically increasing the funding in those areas.

I would imagine someone already asked the question of whether or not the LHC money should be spent, seeing as it was. Obviously someone(s) in politics understands the worth of the LHC and decided to fund it. Why debate about it now? If the LHC is a failure, then the failure should be analyzed, and based on that analysis a line can be drawn. But what if the LHC points to more and more possibilities?

Brian Cox is right, the 19-20th century advancements were founded on the type of exploratory science that propels the LHC project.

So we have Raccoon City getting flooded while the LHC summons demons from hell, eh? Good thing Gordon Freeman is around, only need to find Alice now, hehe

I love the term FBS. Sounds about right.

I was telling my wife the other day that they turned on the LHC and after explaining it for about an hour, all I got was a big, "so, why is that good?"

A agree with the point that some people need to understand what could potentially come out of this research before they can appreciate it.

yahweh's return!

righteous fire and brimstone!

simultaneous demonspawn radiation, and implosion!

dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria!

and you broke the fucking internets, dillhole!

As I understand it, they're smashing protons which are smaller than atoms.

This uproar reminds me of the Mars convergence back in July 2005: where the sky-is-falling types were screaming about Mars colliding with the Earth. It's so mind-numbingly stupid, that I believe them to be joking. Hence, I think the black hole people are joking too. Pretty funny.

[edit]

...but maybe not.

http://gizmodo.com/5048646/girl-commits-suicide-over-lhc-doomsday-predictions

w. t. f.

>> ^aspartam:
Brian Cox is awesome. I was smitten by him ever since since he explained LHC at TED. What a well spoken young man. Kids should idolize him instead of Lil'Wayne or Whomeverisinthechartsnowadays.


Right on, here is that talk, by the way http://www.videosift.com/video/Brian-Cox-at-TEDtalks-on-the-Large-Hadron-Collider

Brian Cox is awesome. I was smitten by him ever since since he explained LHC at TED. What a well spoken young man. Kids should idolize him instead of Lil'Wayne or Whomeverisinthechartsnowadays.