Really Bad News: LHC to be Switched Off Until Spring 2009

[/caption]First there was a glitch with one of the huge 30-tonne transformers causing a delay of a few days, then a quench leaked a tonne of helium coolant into one of the tunnels, forcing a two-month shutdown while repairs could be made.

Brace yourselves for some more bad news.

In a statement released by CERN today, due to an obligatory maintenance period, the LHC will have to remain off-line until late March or early April 2009. Problems with an experiment as huge as the worlds biggest particle accelerator can be expected, but this will be a costly delay and a psychological setback after the initial excitement of the first particle circulation on October 10th. The elusive Higgs Boson will have to wait a few more months

I had a nagging feeling over the weekend after writing about the LHC quench and the two month delay in operations – what if the delay is longer than we think? The severe damage was caused by faulty wiring between two supercooled electromagnets when scientists carried out electrical tests at the facility Friday morning, resulting in a helium leak between sections 3-4 of the 27 km (17 mile) accelerator ring. Although no one was injured, the emergency services had to be called and the electromagnets heated up well beyond operational temperatures. Initial reports suggested experiments would be put back until the end of the year, but now it would seem the LHC won’t accelerate particles again until spring 2009.

Coming immediately after the very successful start of LHC operation on 10 September, this is undoubtedly a psychological blow. Nevertheless, the success of the LHC’s first operation with beam is testimony to years of painstaking preparation and the skill of the teams involved in building and running CERN’s accelerator complex. I have no doubt that we will overcome this setback with the same degree of rigour and application.” – CERN Director General Robert Aymar.

This is indeed a severe blow to CERN and the scientists at the LHC, but the delay is necessary as the time required to warm up the accelerator, fix the problem and cool it down again will extend into CERN’s obligatory winter maintenance period. Therefore we won’t see any more accelerated protons until 2009.

Once again, in light of these setbacks, physicists are keeping positive and hoping for success in the near future. “The LHC is a very complex instrument, huge in scale and pushing technological limits in many areas,” said Peter Limon in the CERN press release, who was responsible for commissioning the Tevatron at Fermilab in the USA. “Events occur from time to time that temporarily stop operations, for shorter or longer periods, especially during the early phases.”

There have been delays in the commissioning of the LHC (after all, it was originally planned to be operational in the mid-2000s) and setbacks in the last few days, but after two decades of planning and construction, a few more months isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things…

Source: CERN press release

72 Replies to “Really Bad News: LHC to be Switched Off Until Spring 2009”

  1. Kinda sucks, but remember what happened to the Hubble space telescope at first. Once it was fixed, we got the most amazing pictures ever. Just a little more patience I guess.

  2. I don’t believe it is being shut down for the reason given. I think even at the low power, they might have done something that they weren’t expecting. Has everyone here looked at the CERN logo? you guys realize what that is right? its a 666. Just to show you that it isn’t a coincidence. look up the logo for the Trilateral Commission. maybe you should wiki it first. Their logo is also a cleverly hidden 666.

  3. uh.. 666? The ‘6’ shapes in the CERN logo are intended to represent the trajectories of particles in an accelerator. Particle accelerators are circular, apart from a short straight segment from which the particles are injected. The fact that the resulting shape happens to look like a ‘6’ is purely coincidental.

  4. coincidence? you really think so? is it a coincidence that NATAS puts on the Emmy Awards every year. what is NATAS backwards? I guess to you it spells coincidence. Maybe its also just a coincidence that the $1 bill is full of occult symbols. owls, pyramids, all seeing eye, 13, 32, 33 numerology is all over the bill etc ect. yep just a coincidence too.

  5. o god now theres gonna be talk of an illuminati. i’ve never seen conspiracy theorists in my life….. mhm.

  6. Wow! I didn’t think this would be repaired before the end of this year (something I predicted earlier–which I “guestimated” from the size of this thing and what could have potentially gone wrong) but March and April?

    Oh well, I guess it gives me a few more months entertaining the “its a black hole machine and we are all going to die” people.

    Should be fun. 😉

  7. Im here just to get some people thinking and not to take things at face value. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, close minded people will always say “there is no duck, you are crazy. its just a coincidence.” The truth is out there just ask the right questions (not from me but the internet my son).

  8. what the heck is rogue getting at???

    i really hope you are joking because i have no idea what you are trying to say? are you suggesting that beelzebub is in some way involved in the largest physics experiment the world has ever seen? the dark prince strikes me as more of a biology or chemistry buff, you know lakes of sulfur and all that……and i know the emmys aint great but if satan was involved in some sort of awards show he probably would align himself with MTV (bit more cutting get you see, get the kiddies hooked)

    as for the one dollar bill……..well it doesnt really matter if the devil is making a play to take over the US when there is someone much worse alreaday in the whitehouse right???

  9. funny you mention the whitehouse. all the most recent presidents have been members of either the Trilateral Commission (see my comments above 666) or the CFR (wiki Council on Foreign Relations). McCain is backed by the CFR, while Obama is backed by Zbigniew Brzezinski the head muckety muck of the Trilateral Commission. The CFR, and TC are essentially the same entity. who is the head of those organizations? and who is he connected to. come on even sheep can connect the dots.

  10. Yeah Rogue, sheep and psycho conspiracy theorists who will never have any of their ideas taken seriously. See you in anonymity.

  11. didn’t mean to insult anyone, the devil made me do it. use google image to see how many times Bush and the crew have falshed the devil sign. Or the Bill Clinton Man of the Year TIME cover. You ever wonder why the economy is falling apart? or what kind of people it takes to lie to an entire country? I dont know much but I will say that people love to be lied to, nothing is harder to accept than the TRUTH.

  12. Couldn’t help but notice something in the second (or would it be the third?) paragraph: The first particle circulation was September 10th, not October 10th; either that, or I’m really behind… 😛

  13. Is it any coincidence that there is a conspiracy theorist named ROGUE here? It’s all in the NAME people, ROGUE it’s an Anagram For ROUGE which in French Means “RED” He’s clearly a Commie Spy.

    Did you Notice there are also FIVE letters in His Name? And there are FIVE fingers on your Right Hand. So not only is he a Commie Spy he’s someones RIGHT HAND!

    Furthermore the Word ROGUE as Defined by Websters means a dishonest, knavish person; scoundrel so he’s Probably a Libertarian which looks a Lot like the Word Librarian if you remove the Letters “E” and “T” which CLEARLY is a Subconscious attempt to claim his TRUE identity as an Excessive Talker!

    I see through you ROGUE! I am going to activate my Secret Santa Decoder Ring and Send you back to Planet Nibiru with all the rest of your Xylon Friends! May XENU have mercy on your PROTOPLASM!

  14. seriously rogue grow up……..

    people running for the presidency being backed by high profile businessmen, thats not a conspiracy its the world we live in. these people want the influnce and power so of course they are going to try and back a winning horse.

    to quote you…..”all the most recent presidents have been members of either the Trilateral Commission or the CFR” wow a rich white guy being in power thats a new one.

    and the devil has nothing to do with george bush being a horrible president, or the world enconomies collapsing.its simply base human greed and lack of respect for human life that leads to wars being started for the wrong reasons and entire countries being lied to.

    there is no need for consipacy theories when it is as simple as the rich wanting to get richer.

  15. I’m please to see that they are exercising caution by shutting it down. Make damn sure your 100% postive what the cause was.

    afterall they dontl want to repeat the mistake the FERMI lab near Chicago made 3 years ago when it accidently leaked phosphorescent radioactive “Tritium” isotopes into the nearby Indian Creek River after heavy rains that summer around the Chicago area.

    I always found their explanation a bit incomplete since Tritium glows in the dark, why didn’t the FERMI lab inspectors see it first before it drained out of the facility?

    Better safe than sorry, shut LHC down until we know all the details. These type of mechanical failures are excatly what can lead to a major accident down the road.

  16. I heard that ROGUE was a secret illigitimate crack baby of a well known politician contained in his name. Scary!!!!

  17. rogue Says:
    September 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 pm

    “…The truth is out there just ask the right questions (not from me but the internet my son).”

    You mean the INTERNET internet?! You mean that repository of all that is good and truthful? Where upstanding citizens the world over express the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth? Where wild speculations and secret agendas have no place?

    Come on mate! There are almost as many conspiracy theories and wild speculations on the net as there are websites in existence… If the truth is out there, it certainly hasn’t been discovered by some acne-faced 14 year old webmaster by cleverly deciphering the design of the American 1 dollar bill, or observing the subtle body language of presidents in official photos.

    And, while we’re off topic – why in God’s name would these supposed super-secret world-controlling powers print their plans in code on the 1 dollar bill for astute conspiracy theorists to decipher? It makes no sense man!!

  18. Now on topic – this is highly disappointing, and it would have been good to at least get a few collisions under our belt before this happened, but it is no big deal in the scheme of things.

    Six months is nothing when it comes down to it, really. The Higgs will still be there. If it’s there to begin with, that is!

  19. Oh god, i’m never going on holiday again, many bad things have happened over the weekend, now THIS!
    Holidays are bad luck i tell ye!

    Hopefully this won’t give more fuel to all the “crazies” out there.
    “It was divine intervention blah blah hurr”
    If it does, further proves my holiday theory…

    Still can’t believe Toonami went… 11 years… childhood me cried.

  20. I thought setbacks were proof that we are on the right track. Experiments are just that. CERN will carry on and bring us gifts of knowledge and technology.

  21. sliver thread, that was funny. Astrofiend, symbols are all around us, the CBS, and AOL logos are the all seeing eye from the back of the $1, the xx in the exxon logo is a masonic cross, logos ect are used as a secret language to communicate info the the initiates. I don’t expect anyone to believe what Im saying, just look it up for yourselves. The CERN logo is 666 staring you right in the face. take the blue pill and its just a coincidence, take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

  22. I should imagine that the December shutdown is caused by the need to use more electricity than is available during the European mid winter period when temperatures are at their low point and there is a consequential need for the full capacity of the system to provide for the needs of the rest of the two nations industry and home heating.

  23. It’s pitiful to see all that effort being squandered on the subject of dark matter, because it’s based on the object-centered concept of gravitation, which is false, as some still puzzling facts suggest. Now they have the Collider working on it. What a megawaste of h/ware!

    The opposite, space-centered viewpoint does explain away the inconsistencies without any need for “missing” matter that was never there. Someone had better feel grateful for the chance to move ahead quickly now, along the royal road to Truth, after all the years in the bush…or beating around it.

  24. Actually, this is not a surprise since there was always talk about it taking months to warmup and cool back down. That would have put it into the “obligatory winter maintenance” timeframe. I think its rare for engineering projects to go on schedule, especially something like this.

  25. @rogue:

    1) If SATAN were giving out the Emmys, then, well, only heavy metal bands should ever win, right? I mean heavy metal is all about child-sacrificing, blood-drinking and devil-worshipping, right??

    But maybe Hannah Montana is Teh Tr00 Ebil…

    2) Since you seem adept at reading the secret symbolisms hidden in corporate logos, you have just branded yourself an initiate. And you know the other initiates don’t like whistle-blowers…

    A BIT more on-topic: Do we normal people and LHC supporters now finally get our own conspiracy theory, declaring this a VILE act of sabotage, a TERRORIST attack designed to postpone the END OF THE WORLD??? Because I want to feel loony too for once.

    *sigh* Damn you, LHC. Looks like I’ll need to finish my PhD thesis now after all…

  26. The article said: “Problems with an experiment as huge as the worlds biggest particle accelerator can be expected, but this will be a costly delay and a psychological setback after the initial excitement of the first particle circulation on October 10th. The elusive Higgs Boson will have to wait a few more months…”

    It’s really not as bad as you make it sound. Sure, they won’t be able to collide 5TeV this year, but they’ll use the advanced winter shut down to make everything ready for 7 TeV collisions next spring and the detectors still need a lot of refining/tuning anyway.

    Also, they will need at least a year of statistical data to establish the existence of the Higgs.

  27. Rogue (aka Devil Whisperer),
    You are right… and we are all communicating to each other and talking about YOU!
    YOU are the only one on this website who isn’t part of the conspiracy.
    We all are attempting to raise evil spirits to take over everything; especially when you are involved with it. WE are following YOU always.

    Everything you read on the Internet is truth!

    I finally realized this when I looked at a Baskin Robbins label and noticed it isn’t 31, it is actually a reverse 13! You know how evil 13 is! They are using subliminal information to take over the world!
    I realized something else when I noticed someone wearing a Red Wings jersey… nothing has a ‘red wing’ except for demons… so it must be another imbedded sign of doom!
    I went crazy after seeing the Better Business Bureau logo, they have a flame… which obviously comes from the devils playground. I mean seriously… if you think CBS’ eye logo is ominous, then everything is in play.

    Sometimes I look up into the clouds and see evil objects in the sky, or I’ll start doodling… sit back and notice there is some evil outline drawn on my paper PROVING I am possessed! I can’t help it… WE CANT HELP IT…

    Save us all Rogue. Only you can see the truth! Be our devil whisperer!

  28. Oh wait, I am really FREAKING out now. After I finished typing I decided to vaccum my keyboard and there are three sixes on my keyboard!
    The F6 key, the 6 above the QWERTY keys and the 6 on the numeric pad.
    666

    PROOF!!

    …don’t know what it is proof of
    Tell us wise Devil Whisperer… what does this mean? Will the evil force of all keyboards ever produced one day wipe us off the Earth before the LHC fires up?

  29. I have never posted here before but I feel compelled! You all should get a panel type talk show cause you are all hilarious!! I have not laughed that hard in a long time. Thanks!

  30. Oh… And my 2 cents on LHC. I am glad that they are taking the time to find the bugs, the last thing we need is this thing ACTUALLY creating a black hole on accident and give those naysayers and conspiracy theorists something to complain about. That and the fact that we will all be sucked into a black hole! 8)

  31. Whoa!, thought I was at the New Scientist website with the rest of the conspiracy crowd. The few relevant comments posted convinced me this was UT after all….guess it stands for ‘Universal Truth’ and not ‘Utter Tripe’. Go LHC, see you in ’09.

  32. quick history lesson folks. just 60 years ago a huge occultist almost took over the world. the swastika , the SS lightning bolts, etc. were major occult symbols. the nazis weren’t just a political group they followed occult beliefs of a master white race from another planet, that is a fact. after the war, head nazi scientists were shipped to the USA under project paperclip. they are the ones who got us to the moon. Big time occultists put Hitler into power. Is it so hard to believe that occultism, which has been going on for 10,000 years, is still around today? If occultist nazi scientist got us to land on the moon, I hate to see what occultist scientists can do with a machine that can create a wormhole or a dimensional gate. you cant make this shit up, truth is stranger than fiction.

  33. In the beginning Rogue was just a bit silly and humuorus but I now believe him to be scary. Anyone this parnoid is a threat to all the people around him, I hope he is in an institution under lock and key, if he isn’t someone should get him there quickly. One of these days one of his little green men will whisper in his ear that they are closing in and we may be reading about another person going Postal.

    Don’t know how to help but someone should

  34. Chris Coles is right. They always close the ring in winter because it uses more electricity than is available due to heating in the nearby city of Geneva. Don’t forget that the 27km ring used to accelerate electrons. The LHC is “just” a refurbishment project.

  35. seriously rogue… who put that things (for not saying “another” thing) in your head?

    please… don’t be so closed in your thoughts…

    if you see that things is ‘cuz YOU WANT SEE THAT THINGS…

  36. People, people, people.

    Rogue is mentally ill, period. Arguing with him, ridiculing him, or even acknowledging him, simply throws gasoline on the fire. Ignore him–it’s for the best.

  37. Bad economic times have been blamed on the trilateral commission for the better part of a century. This is the first time I am aware of, they have been accused of hiding the Higgs Boson from us.

    Unfortunately, no one warned us they were jacking the LHC; or the economy, until it was too late. (Two years ago, when a warning might have been meaningful, all the conspiracy rags were warning us about illegal aliens, not investment bankers and large hydron colliders.)

    Since you have no ability to predict, please limit the discussion to issues relevant to this thread – telling us you know the cause when you have ABSOLUTELY no forward-looking antenna is a meaningless, tiring excercise.

  38. 665-666-667 …. see, it is just a number like any other number. There’s even a page 666 in most Bibles and dictionaries. Quit being so superstitious and quit believing the “end of the world” and “talking snake” garbage.

    I swear, if the Papacy had it’s way, Galileo would be burned at the stake and we’d all still be living in the Dark Ages. Good thing for secular humanism and rational thought that people didn’t allow that to happen.

  39. Besides, if one were to interpret the cern logo that way, there’d be way too many 6’s. Go back to bed ye antiscience mongers.

  40. Why wasn’t this thing about closing the LHC down for the winter not mentioned before?

    The machine can’t handle Geneva winters
    or what? Or is it a European thing?

    Lots of people are waiting for important information. WIth thousands operating the LHC, can’t a few at least be on all the time?

  41. Daniel,
    The LHC’s is not only focused on dark matter. From your statement, I’m not even sure you are aware indepthly educated on it.

    There are many experiments which are planned with the LHC which have nothing to do with dark matter. Please research a bit more before making extreme comments and statements which offer no proof or truth.

  42. Nice theological debate Ian!

    rogue: 666 is insignificant when it comes to numbers. After all, the god of the bible is a megolomaniacal insecure mass murderer, and Satan was man’s first teacher.

  43. I was having a bad day until I read these comments. Laughter is the best medicine. Rogue, are you living under the Georgia Guide Stones or are you just reading Dan Brown too much? Take a deep breath and put the book down. Hate to hear what you come up with if you read Harry Potter. Maybe you and Steve Jackson should make card games. But seriously, you can’t build a machine the size of the LHC and not expect some set backs. Just a little time to safely work out the bugs and we will see some incredible science. Unless Rogue gets in there and blows the thing up. Don’t tell me you have been reading Carl Sagan too. We don’t need this to be like Contact.

  44. Has it occured to anyone that REAL conspiracies don’t leave symbols and clues all over the place?

    Would you?

    If you must worry, worry about the stuff you have NO inkling of,,,

  45. What if nature doesn’t want us to discover the truth, hence the LHC is malfunctioning now and the next time it goes again, it will malfunction again and then we still persist, I think nature will decide to destroy us 😀 …you know the analogy, “We are playing with Fire, we think it’s safe if we are careful but…” you know how it goes.

  46. Mass hysteria and anticipation triggered the DUGAN’S LAW ..or is it Kelly’s law ?
    anyhow some Irishman’s law.

    OOOOOMMMM OOOOMMMMMM OOMMMMM

    The impending outrageously horrible doom from the prospect of mini black holes enlarging to gobble us all up influenced a flaw in the space time continuum and a singularity occurred or was nudged into happening by other dimensional creatures of the cosmos who monitor the Catastrophy Theory Modeling Computer ….sooo …someone out there cares for us all and we are saved from the evil LHC devils for a little while at least.

  47. Heh , more like some paranoid rouge like character who probably was a double agent for the doomsday theorists triggerd the leak in helium… you never know man , you never know

  48. If gamma ray bursts are the result of very high energy cosmic ray, headon collisions, unmeasurable by our 100 year old science on the subject, than perhaps we’ll get a more measurable version when the collider starts back up, if it does.

  49. So here’s some “proof & truth” you can ponder, Aodhhan, because you asked for it. Abridgement is impossible & it will look more like a prosy “paper” but it can’t be helped. Sorry! If it can’t be here then it’ll have to be at Space.com or somewhere else….

    …but first of all, OF COURSE they’ll be doing other things, apart from looking for new particles they can call “dark”, but if you think there are sound reasons for doing away with the notion of “dark matter”, then you’ll feel the facilities are being ill-used.

    What’s odd is the way you ignored the marrow of the matter –the two opposing theories on the nature of gravitation– as though you knew about this & take it for granted, which is doubtful. Otherwise you would’ve addressed the issue, instead of pointing out the obvious.

    Dark matter is not on the cutting edge of anything. It’s a makeshift, “ad hoc” contrivance, a mere twig, whimsically grafted onto the stem of astrophysics, & fated to wither away. The cutting edge is a space-oriented concept of gravitation.

    Going back to the obvious, in another context: “Be suspicious about anything that is too obvious. In this business, progress is made by those who refuse to take something for granted.” This warning in a physics textbook is applicable to the idea that gravitation issues from the objects themselves, or “bodies”. The opposite viewpoint –space-rooted gravitation– might not be as simple & obvious, yet it underlies an idea as old as the atomic theory.

    It’s called “plenism”, from the Latin “plenum”, meaning “filled”, the doctrine that all of space is filled with matter, & thus nature has no vacuums, & so there is no such thing as a vacuum, that Aristotle developed to refute the belief in atoms in a void. It led to the phrase, “Natur abhorrs a vacuum.”

    The confusion goes that far back, & it survives because the term “matter” is still being used in different ways, so it’s best to say “stuff”, which would be anything (matter & energy, or radiation) except space. Even so, space, too, is “stuff”, meaning “something”, because it’s there, as opposed to “nothing”, but it’s PRIMORDIAL, homogeneous, undifferentiated stuff, so that there’s basically two stuffs: differentiated & undifferentiated.

    A space-rooted theory of gravitation does away with the need for dark matter. It furnishes a “dark matrix”, which is space. It springs from the idea that space is the Womb (or one step removed from it, about which more later on maybe). Everything pops up out of it, i.e., both matter & energy, which are one & the same thing, in various degrees of dilution.

    Quantum physics agrees with this when it talks about the “living void”, a “nothingness”, figuratively speaking, from which particles appear briefly, & to which they revert.

    In the beginning it was assumed that gravitation was a feature of objects, but there was a second option never chosen: that it emanated from space. The matter of how this force was exerted across “empty” space remained. This “action at a distance” was magical & puzzling. Then it was said that objects “distort” the space around them, creating a “field” that conditions the behavior of neighboring objects & passing radiation, much like magnets. No longer do we have forces, but fields, & this solves the action-at-a-distance problem.

    This no longer sounds very much like a body-rooted gravitation, but like something intermediate between that & the other point of view. It looks like a step forward, & half a step backward. The next step is to see that space is like a “dark matrix”, packed with whatever stuff it happens to be, which accounts for the effects that dark matter is blamed for.

    Simple logic shows that this medium that is space has to be infinitely dense, since nothingness is, by definition, nonexistent. No matter how finely you chop space into bits, or blow it to smithereens, you’ll never obtain a bit of nothingness or true emptiness. You can’t have a speck of nothingness surrounded by all that is, nor can you have, by the way, “all that is” surrounded by a sea of nothingness, or claim that 1) the expanding blob of the universe creates existing space as it moves on, & that 2) existence beyond that is simply “undefined” & asking what lies beyond expanding space, or what it expands into, makes no sense. All that exists has to go on forever, i.e., space is endless, inescapably & inexplicably, & Hoyle was right after all.

    Space, then, as reason tells us, is a matrix that is unimaginably dense, harboring accretions of its stuff that we perceive as matter & energy. It’s as though space were a uniform thing, like milk, that curdles for unknown reasons. Waves going back & forth betray this ghostly matrix, because waves are nothing in themselves, but merely disturbances in a medium.

    Black holes, too, reveal the underlying matrix, or the Mother, because they partake of its infinite density. They are matter reverting to the primordial state –matter going back to the Wellspring to be recycled. A black hole can legitimately say, “He who has seen me has seen the Mother, for the Mother & I are one.”

    This is a return to the “ether” concept, but so is the Higgs field, for that matter. They’ll be looking for it with the LHC. This hypothetical field encompasses the entire universe. Moreover, it implies that space furnishes gravitation, since the stuff of the field (bosons) is not subtle enough to be massless. According to the current Standard Model, photons & gluons alone are massless. Interactions with the Higgs stuff is supposed to account for the masses of all elementary particles.

    Finally, the only thing that brings up doubts about the primordial nature of space is this: that just as matter is inconceivable without space to hold it, so, too, space seems to be unthinkable with no objects in it, because, if there is not even a pair of objects, from each of which the other can be pointed at & a distance posited, or at the very least a single extended body, on which you can establish a distance, & point at a “here” & a “there”, could anybody (a pure, disembodied consciousness), in utter emptiness, relate any place to any other, & talk about a here & a there?

    Space would thus seem to be on the same level or category as matter. This suggests that the only truly primordial thing is eternal, uncreated consciousness, without which nothing is conceivable, & from which everything else issues.

    If all this isn’t enough to make them take dark stuff off the LHC task list then I have failed. Should we make a bet?

  50. Ya know, all the bad things that went down in
    I Am Legend (the 2007 movie version) started happening in 2009.

    Plus Bush will finally be thrown out of office in 2009 – unless he creates another terrorist attack and declares martial law in the US in order to maintain a neoconservative dictatorship.

    Also, if you flip the nine upside down and add extensions to the two zeros in 2009, you get… 666.

    Coincidence? I think not.

  51. hey quantum_flux

    i’m a christian… and i really like science… and that doesn’t make me less christian…

    i’m not agreed with rogue… neither the other “conspiracy” guys…

  52. Really wierd stuff coming out. It appears the Null Physics and Mirror in the sky crowds are really getting steamed.

  53. The dark prince satan cannot be involved with Cern because I play cards against him every friday night. Despite him pretending to be human, I know who he really is!

  54. “Silly Christians, colliders are for physicists!”

    You know, it’s not so proper to say that, while you have a point for Fundamentalists. I am Christian with a leaned belief of Old Earth Creationism (For those that do not know what that is, it’s a belief in the creation of all that is but a Deity, but not int eh form of Genesis in the Bible with 7 days, it actually leans to the scientific ideal of The Big Bang theory, the age of the universe being what science says it is. It’s basically everything in the belief of Atheists or believers of Science, but with a belief of a god. Everything from Dimensions, to the ideal of the universe to intelligent life beyond our planet, all believed the same as Science, but just belief in a Deity behind the start.) and as such, I excelled and loved Science since grade school, and I’m looking towards expanding my education and beyond beyond in the field of Physics.

  55. Quoting a.k.a. Timber…

    “Timber Says:
    September 25th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
    Really wierd stuff coming out. It appears the Null Physics and Mirror in the sky crowds are really getting steamed.”
    ————————————————————–

    The discussion here ended some time ago, so maybe nobody will be reading this, ever. I’ll have to send it anyway because something unexpected came up. Ultimately it has to do with what C.P. Snow, back in 1959, talked about: the wall that divides “the two cultures” (but only in the West).

    I thought that “null physics” & “the mirror in the sky” were creative insults, coming from someone who was trying to be cute. Maybe he was saying it was all just “smoke & mirrors”. Talking back to someone with hit-&-run tactics, who can’t break down an argument & show the contradictions, if any, was out of the question.

    Then, a few days ago, I came across an old Universe Today report –“Research Uncovers New Kuiper Belt Mystery”– written in 2002. It must’ve been the last word in the title that urged “pradipta”, years later, to invite us to his Space Mirror Mystery website.

    That’s how I found out about this new theory. It’s incomprehensible, & his bad English makes it even more incoherent. This led me to do a Web search on “null physics”. It now seemed like it could be another weird idea, not a derogatory remark. (Remember: it’s “I before E, except after W”.)

    …& that’s how I found out about this other new theory, put together by a Mr. Witt, who’s supposed to be an engineer (not the kind who drives locomotives). The foundation for his brand new physics is the idea that space is an “array of points”, & since points are nothing, then space, hence the universe, is nothing.

    This means that the entire book ($59, 479 pages, 73 color plates, 30 color graphs) rests on a fallacy. Only someone with a knowledge of philosophy will notice this.

    It’s the same kind of mistake Zeno of Elea made when he came up with his paradoxes relating to movement. He thought he’d shown how it’s impossible to move across space without getting bogged down right at the start, yet it can be done. What he did was imagine that space is infinitely divisible, so the moving entity must cross an infinite number of segments, and thus it will never be able to reach the goal. The arrow never hits the target, & Achilles never overtakes the turtle.

    He’s making an illegitimate move. The mistake is to confuse the “sensible world” –the world we perceive through the senses, which is the world “out there”, or the “real” world, if you like– with the “intelligible world”, or the mind (to use the same terms they used in those days). Only in the latter can something be divided “ad infinitum”. In the former, SPACE IS CONTINUOUS, & so it can be easily crossed, as any turtle will notice.

    Mr. Witt, too, like Zeno, is using imaginary things (points) to describe the nature of real ones (space). A point is a mathematical object, & so entirely imaginary, or ideal: “position without magnitude”. (In fact, that’s just what black holes are supposed to be, so the plot gets messy at this point…in history, that is. You, who might be reading this years from now, will have to figure it out. I won’t be here to help you out!)

    This makes him think that, since space can be THOUGHT of as an arrangement of points, then it’s nothing actually, since a sum of nothings is nothing at all, so the universe is simply nothing. Then he tries to back it up with equations. It’s an ignotech playing around both with philosophy & physics, & coming up with an ugly chimera.

    He might just as well have used line & planes to prove that the universe is nothing. Those are two other purely ideal, geometric objects: “length without breadth” & “length & breadth without depth”, respectively.

    (He might’ve taken his hint from the idea that our reality is an illusion (“maya”), & not really there, but just in our minds, but he can’t prove this with his numbers, since mathematics can only describe the illusion, not what lies beyond it.)

    C.P. Snow was first to discuss the underlying difficulty, which is social. Most people in the Western world belong to one of the two cultures, & they can’t understand the other one. Cosmology, in spite of itself, crossed over to the other side –from the sciences to the humanities– as it went deeper & deeper. (Actually, it RETURNED to the humanities, since it used to be in the field of philosophy, as was also the case with psychology, before the sciences started to set up shop elsewhere.) This explains the misunderstandings, as can be so clearly seen on websites such as this one. Insults are the only kind of communication that is possible between members of the two sides.

    There’s only one way out. Nowadays you can’t feel your way forward unless you’re acquainted with both cultures. Nobody’s trying because it’s hard work. This is disastrous since a lopsided mind is only half a mind, & this will distort anything you try to work on.

  56. Heheh Silver Thread, great post and very funny, you used all the conspiracy theorists tricks against him, even the CAPITALIZATION of words to indicate some sort of importance.

    On Topic, sad news about the LHC, I can’t wait until she is cranking again!

    have a nice day
    -Dan

Comments are closed.