I know a few months back it was having problems due to some sort of malfunction, a magnet or something...not too sure. Has anybody been following the news on the LHC?

I think it's going to take a little while to fix the problems still. They say by Summertime, but I wouldn't hold your breath...

It should be online in 2009. They would have been lucky to get it working right away. That never happens. Exciting stuff.

http://press.web.cern.ch...leases2008/PR17.08E.html

Yeah for sure. Seeing pictures of that thing is beyond words..its HUGE. Hopefully those guys find what they're looking for

^^It might be what they don't find that makes it so amazing.

True that true that :idea:

No matter how exciting this type of research may be, the problems with the LHC show that this type of research is something of a dead end street. There comes a moment, certainly with the current economical situation, that we cannot build an accelerator, bigger and more powerfull. While the LHC might answer some of the questions we have, it's innevitable that new questions will also arise because of that. So at a certain moment we will be met with new questions while we can no longer build more powerfull machines. Scientists will have to find new ways of doing research.
And i'm a very pro-science dude, so me saying this says something, even if it where just for the further amounts of money, likely to be raised.

The disscoveries that come from this kind of research could lead to technological breakthroughs as well as breakthroughs in our understanding of the universe. We have not reached the limit of fundamental physics yet. Nor have we reached the limit of how powerful a machine we can build.

Research into quantum mechanics in the early part of the century is what allowed computer technology to advance in the way it did. Without such fundamental research technology will not progress.

The current economic situation is caused by forces that have nothing to do with science funding. Investing in science is an investment in the future.

I completely agree with it being an investment for the future. But not that the limits of building more powerfull machines are far from reached. The LHC works with extremely high levels of energy. To build a new supercollider that would be only 10% more powerfull would make no sense at all. The next generation supercolliders would have to be in a whole new scale of energy levels and this means that with the next generation supercolliders the limits to how far you can go are in sight. because the next level after that would have to be in a whole new scale as well. So if each new scale would mean you would have to multiply by four, or something similar, that within only a few generations you would have to build a collider as big as switserland itself. But it's not even like that, because the higher the energy levels, the more you would have to multiply your investments with.

^^Ah ok I see what you mean. Its kind of like NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) instruments. In theory one could build bigger and bigger magnets to get higher and higher resolution and sensitivity but after a while it becomes very impractical and the gain is less.

The CERN (LHC) project played a big role in the development of the internet. In fact there have been many technological advances as part of just getting the LHC off the ground so that in and of itself is a big scientific breakthru. The LHC will start up in the fall of 2009 according to recent reports. They dont run it year around simply due to the amount of energy it consumes. As it was stated above quantum physics has revolutionized modern society and with the rapid explosion of nanotechnology and the implications of it on our society the LHC may very well be the biggest technological advancement in history.

Now I know it isnt essential we discover the higgs boson but as our technology is being built smaller and smaller on the molecular scale the more our knowledge of quantum physics has to be sound to be able to effectively take advantage of it's 'magical' effects. In truth quantum physics is a work around for the laws of the standard model of physics. Material development on the nanoscale will allow us to build materials many times lighter than our strongest material and thousands of times stronger. The carbon nanotube technology has vast implications from circuitry to ultralight materials.

Quantum computing would bring about a new era in computer processing and in many ways would give us the ability to solve problems that even with todays computers are all but impossible. One quantum computer would have the ability to do calculations that all the computers on the earth could not do combined.

There are vast implications from delivery of medicines without side effects to materials, computing, even the possibility to make the star trek 'replicator' possible.

If the higgs isn't found, there's gonna be no funding anymore, for the next collider. BTW, there are many scientists who are extremely critical towards this project. It's often speculated that it would be more usefull to smash electrons than protons.
I like science and i agree even on the statements that it's gonna be scientific achievements that gonna solve the problems of todays world.
But there's a lot to say on these huge machines;that they're built for political prestige as much as for expected scientific results; that competition between the guys in chicago and geneva seems a waste of resources, but most of all; it's not the most beautifull way of conducting experiments if you need machines the size of a small city.
There must be other ways.

^^I see what you mean. Many people think that its a waste of money. The thing cost 8 billion or something. I still think its sweet and could unlock deep secrets about the universe which could be economically and philosophically rewarding. People spend billions on war and useless junk all the time. I'd rather see people building particle accelerators then tanks.

Talking about waste of money, $8 billions cannot rival the $1.9 trillion spent on Iraqui war or the $700 billion spent in on go propping up the US banking sector.


I do not think that the whole experiment is in vain. If higgs boson is not found, then something else will be. Good quality scientific experiments as so designed to give you as much meaningful information as possible. This is the case for everyday simple experiments scientists do, let along on the case of such high calibre projects like LHC!

^^Yea actually it would be very interseting if they don't find the higgs boson because that will force models to be relooked at and remade and something new and interesting could come up.

8 billion is pocketchange these days. The development of the internet itself was well worth 8 billion it has revolutionized the way we communicate and do business. I am sure many more times than 8 billion is traded via the internet heck I think ebay itself is worth more than 8 billion.

Regardless of wether the higgs boson is found or not the answer will be revolutionary. If it isnt found then we will know we are following the wrong path and that will save us years of wasted science research and theory.