“One short trip for a proton..”
Are we all still here then? The machinery works! And the official CERN press release is here. But, as the Irish Times report notes, there haven’t been any actual collisions yet..
And then, perhaps in the coming weeks, they will pump beams in both directions and smash the particles together – but initially at low intensity. Later, probably near the end of the year, they will move on to produce tiny collisions that will recreate the heat and energy of the Big Bang, a concept of the origin of the universe that now dominates scientific thinking.
The Guardian, bless ‘em, are live-blogging today’s event.. Adds RTÉ live has online all day coverage. And A second beam has now gone successfully around the collider in a counter-clockwise direction.
Has this whole ‘end of the world’ thing been actively encouraged by CERN’s PR people just to get front page news?
As has pointed out from day one- much more violent events occur in the upper atmosphere in on a fairly regular basis with no obvious sign of black holes poppping up everywhere.
A more interesting story is the theoretical possibility that the LHC events could provide a bridge for scientists from the future to send messages back. Now that’s a much more interesting prospect!
I just love Google’s new logo, specially prepared for today’s event:
http://www.google.com/logos/lhc.gif
I’m not dead.
Phew!
Adds RTÉ live has online all day coverage.
the whole thing seemed anti-climatic if you ask me!
Apparently there hasn’t actually been any particle collisions !.
There I was waiting for the end of the world and now I have to wait until next week
One short trip for a proton..
one giant trip for protonkind!
Yvonne
Not far off the actual quote. ;op