Understanding how the world operates at the subatomic level is vital to continuing research in all sorts of fields. If we come to understand the relationship between the basic forces of the universe, understand how atoms and subatomic particles are bound and interact, the possibilities are endless.

You want a cure for cancer or AIDS? Learning how the smallest, most basic elements of the universe work may well teach us how to replicate the workings in things such as medical nanotechnology.

Yes, the world has poured so much money into the LHC, and yes, we could have done other things with that money. But we didn't. While the idea of creating children's houses in Africa is a noble idea, what if this research eliminates the need for such things?

That being said, there was a cooling system failure in the LHC a few days ago. It damaged some of the supermagnets, some electrical systems, and other things. It's going to take about 2 months to fix. The damage isn't that extensive, but the LHC runs at near absolute zero. They have to slowly heat the whole thing up to room temperature, get people in there to fix it, then cool it back down again.

So much for getting full-fledged testing started next month. ;.;

HAHA. I find that rather humorous.

Personally I could care less if I were to not wake up one morning and say, "hey, where'd the world go?"
They should do what they want. If it makes a black hole, they'll be the first ones to go, victims of karma.

Of course I like my view that everything will go fine until December 12th 2012, and THEN something will happen, like a particle misfires or something and causes the world to end.

Fun fun fun.

Jigglypuff has a point, the money could have gone to better use on hundreds of projects like, research for harnessing renewable energies for cars and mass-transit systems, or on our Space Programs so perhaps we can actually travel further into space. However, the LHC could very well provide with solutions to projects and problems in the world that could move humanity along as a whole(This is assuming the LHC experiements ever Begin! ) As for the end of the world...hmm I suspect overpopulation or some type of Defcon to due us in.

The LHC is the most important religious venture in the history of the planet. God wants the experiments to continue. I believe in the Higgs boson.

There are a lot of other projects which are a lot more expensive - and more evil - which deserve negative attention a lot more. Why do people whine about something which can have only two outcomes: benefit to humanity or destruction of the planet? (And I kinda believe the latter involves the former.)

wow thats a delayed post

Well, he did necro, but I've been hearing so much random LHC 2009 anticipation over the past week that I didn't feel bad replying.

Anyone have word on how the repairs have gone?

I did find it quite amusing myself that this really expensive project they'd put so much effort into and they were so sure wouldn't destroy the world broke down. It seriously does not boost my faith in science, either. I haven't really heard much about it since I heard it broke down myself.


Six billion pounds makes more of a difference than whatever I spend on my internet connection, and I can't actually shut that down anyway, it's a shared network with my family. But I do donate quite a bit of my own money to charity :0
In the modern world, we waste so much of our money. I mean, the amount of money they spent on the Bejing Olympics, and the amount they'll spend on the london olympics could probably give water and provide food and shelter to half the poverty in africa. And they could just use a regular swimming pool D:
Although I am completely biast here, because I couldn't care less about the olympics, they bore the hell out of me. Like all sport.

Also, necromancy is fine as long as you contribute to the topic in general discussion. Spamming isn't though.

but the olympics are profitable aren't they. and if what your saying is that the world shouldn't big events, then there would be nothing to look forward to. imagine if they stopped bringing the world cup, I can't quiet grasp it, lets try smaller, nintendo events gone, I fainted.

Anyway, global warming is going to finish the ruin that Western agricultural industries started in Africa, and it's going to do it sooner rather than later. Millions of people the world over are already environmental refugees. Putting the LHC money into agricultural relief is like trying to bail out the Titanic to make it float again. Why not get all the knowledge we can before issues like money become a moot point anyway? If we can write it all down and store it safely so that humanity's survivors - or the next arising species, assuming they're archaeologically inclined - can avoid having to rediscover the wheel?

personally i wouldn't mind if the world was destroyed by the LHC.
1) no one will be around to care
2) good riddance.

I think their is something like that in California or something. I read some article on a vault that has all these copies or originals of historic documents and recording of historic events like the moon landing.

There's also a series of projects to establish repositories of genetic material from various species, mostly animal and plant, in case of extinction (or extinction events, lol). Frankly, I think that given the scale of the disaster we find ourselves facing, the only two things we can possibly focus on in this life are exploration and preservation. LHC and frozen ark. Everything else is wasted.

Exploration is the key to every single technological advancement in society. If Columbus had never discovered the Americas their would be no USA...maybe. If the USA had never had to compete with the USSR in the space race we would have never landed on the moon. I could go on but to do that would bore me and everyone else here. Exploration stands out as the only option for advancement in technology and civilization at this point.

why is everyone so down on themselves, you're all worrying about death and global warming or illness or asteroids that's going to destroy the human race. but what if you survive eh? don't you ever think about that? what if humanity overcomes all these difficulties and works together to build a better future? I see all people uniting under one rule, and living together in harmony, I see technological advances that you will never imagine (my brother will be the chief engineer), and then, when the sun swallows the earth, humanity will have reached the far corners of the universe.
that's how I see it, mabye you'll agree, but then mabye you wont.

Lolwut?

And as to this, Z:



As someone who follows a generally yogic/Buddhist philosophy on the world, I believe in a unified future. Just not through science alone. Star Trek makes for a great utopian dream, but frankly, society cannot survive in the face of the natural hellstorm we've cooked up; certainly not long enough for a Cochrane to arise and break the lightspeed barrier. If humans leave our system and explore the galaxy, it'll be after we've rebuilt ourselves from the Stone Age. All the unity in the world doesn't matter in the face of the destruction of every major urban center on the planet.

I have never said that humanity wouldn't be able to survive such catastrophic events. The reason human civilization exists is because of its triumphs over many catastrophes. We do have to realize however that we are now "In the eye of the storm" and its up to the technological advancements that are being made in our generations time to determine whether or not we will triumph over his environmental change. It all kinda lies *Dramatic Pause for Suspense* in our hands to change, survive, and move on in life.



Sorry bout the confusion there Nida, basically I was saying it took technological advancements to develop the society we live in today.

Our greatest technological advancement ever was agriculture, which was the genesis of war, famine, xenophobia, institutional misogyny, and almost every environmental disaster in the past seventy thousand years barring earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanic eruptions. We'd have been a lot happier had we stuck with hunting and gathering, tyvmlol.

That said: More science plz!

Science=Technological Advancement+War=Boost in World Economy. In other words Science ftw!

Science != technological advancement. Science is a discipline which follows an established methodology of observation and reasoning. Technology is based on the results of scientific investigation, but the goal of science has little to do with advancing technology. The LHC isn't there to make our lives easier; it's there to tell us whether there's a Higgs boson and whatnot.

War != economic development. That may have been true for Western nations before 198X, but these days most economies are not geared toward manufacturing or investment in manufacturing. Individual companies can be made wealthy through their involvement, but the global economy as a whole suffers.

That is a good point, War stopped helping out the economy around the time after the Vietnam War*cough*police action