Update 2: Scientists send first beam round particle-smasher
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest and most complex machine ever made and the platform for what experts say is the largest scientific experiment in human history. Picture lifted from Facebook.
International scientists celebrated the successful start of a huge particle-smashing machine today aiming to recreate the conditions of the "Big Bang" that created the universe.
Experiments using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complex machine ever made, could revamp modern physics and unlock secrets about the universe and its origins.
The project has had to work hard to deny suggestions by some critics that the experiment could create tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet.
Such fears, fanned by doomsday writers, have spurred huge interest in particle physics before the machine's start-up. Leading scientists have dismissed such concerns as "nonsense."
The debut of the machine that cost 10 billion Swiss francs ($9 billion) registered as a blip on a control room screen at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, at about 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT).
"We've got a beam on the LHC," project leader Lyn Evans told his colleagues, who burst into applause at the news.
The physicists and technicians huddled in the control room cheered loudly again an hour later when the particle beam completed a clockwise trajectory of the accelerator, successfully completing the machine's first major task.
Eventually, the scientists want to send beams in both directions to create tiny collisions at nearly the speed of light, an attempt to recreate on a miniature scale the heat and energy of the Big Bang, a concept of the origin of the universe that dominates scientific thinking.
The Big Bang is thought to have occurred 15 billion years ago when an unimaginably dense and hot object the size of a small coin exploded in a void, spewing out matter that expanded rapidly to create stars, planets and eventually life on Earth.
Slight hiccup
Problems with the LHC's magnets caused its temperature -- which is kept at minus 271.3 degrees Celsius (minus 456.3 degrees Fahrenheit) -- to fluctuate slightly, delaying efforts to send a particle beam in the counter-clockwise direction. The beam started its progression and then was halted.
"This is a hiccup, not a major thing," Rudiger Schmidt, CERN's head of hardware commissioning, told reporters, adding the second rotation should be completed this afternoon.
Evans, who wore jeans and running shoes to the start-up, declined to say when those high-energy clashes would begin.
"I don't know how long it will take," he said. "I think what has happened this morning bodes very well that it will go quickly ... This is a machine of enormous complexity. Things can go wrong at any time. But this morning we had a great start."
Once the particle-smashing experiment gets to full speed, data measuring the location of particles to a few millionths of a metre, and the passage of time to billionths of a second, will show how the particles come together, fly apart, or dissolve.
It is in these conditions that scientists hope to find fairly quickly a theoretical particle known as the Higgs Boson, named after Scottish scientist Peter Higgs who first proposed it in 1964, as the answer to the mystery of how matter gains mass.
Without mass, the stars and planets in the universe could never have taken shape in the aeons after the Big Bang, and life could never have begun -- on Earth or, if it exists as many cosmologists believe, on other worlds either.
Five facts about CERN's Large Hadron Collider
Following are five facts about the 10 billion Swiss franc ($9 billion) Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which will smash together particles at close to the speed of light after its start-up on Wednesday at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN):
• Though built to study the smallest known building blocks of all things -- known as particles -- the LHC is the largest and most complex machine ever made. It has a circumference of 27 km (17 miles) and lies 100 metres (330 feet) under the ground, straddling French and Swiss territory.
• At full power, trillions of protons will race around the LHC accelerator ring 11,245 times a second, travelling at 99.99 percent the speed of light. It is capable of engineering 600 million collisions every second.
• When two beams of protons collide, they will generate temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the heart of the sun, concentrated within a miniscule space. Meanwhile, the cooling system that circulates superfluid helium around the LHC's accelerator ring keeps the machine at minus 271.3 degrees Celsius (minus 456.34 degrees Fahrenheit).
• To collect data of up to 600 million proton collisions per second, physicists and scientists have built devices to measure the passage time of a particle to a few billionths of a second. The trigger system also registers the location of particles to millionths of a metre.
• The data recorded by the LHC's big experiments will fill around 100,000 dual-layer DVDs each year. Tens of thousands of computers around the world have been harnessed in a computing network called "The Grid" that will hold the information. What is the Big Bang? The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, on Wednesday began an experiment to recreate conditions surrounding the Big Bang, which scientists believe gave birth to the universe.
Its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will seek to collide two beams of particles at nearly the speed of light. Scientists will circulate a beam in one direction around the accelerator, then the other, later sending beams both ways to cause collisions.
Following are some facts about the Big Bang and CERN's particle-smashing experiment:
Recreating the Big Bang:
-- The final tests involved pumping a single bunch of energy particles from the project's accelerator into the 27-km (17-mile) beam pipe of the collider and steering them counter- clockwise around it for about 3 km (2 miles). -- The collider aims to simulate conditions milliseconds after the "Big Bang" which created the universe around 13.7 billion years ago.
-- The collisions, in which both particle clusters will be travelling at the speed of light, will be monitored on computers at CERN and laboratories around the world by scientists looking for, among other things, a particle that made life possible.
-- The elusive particle, which has been dubbed the "Higgs Boson" after Scottish physicist Peter Higgs who first postulated nearly 50 years ago that it must exist, is thought to be the mysterious factor that holds matter together.
What is the Big Bang?
-- Recreating a "Big Bang," which most scientists believe is the only explanation of an expanding universe, ought to show how stars and planets came together out of the primeval chaos that followed, the CERN team believes.
-- Its essential feature is the emergence of the universe from a tiny speck about the size of a coin but in a state of extremely high temperature and density.
-- The name "Big Bang" was coined in 1949 by British scientist Fred Hoyle to disparage a then emerging theory about origins that countered his own "steady state" view: that the universe had always existed and was evolving but not expanding.
-- According to the Big-Bang model, the universe expanded rapidly from a highly compressed primordial state, which resulted in a significant decrease in density and temperature. Soon afterward, the dominance of matter over antimatter (as observed today) may have been established by processes that also predict proton decay. During this stage many types of elementary particles may have been present. After a few seconds, the universe cooled enough to allow the formation of certain nuclei.
-- The theory predicts that definite amounts of hydrogen, helium, and lithium were produced. Their abundances agree with what is observed today. About 1,000,000 years later the universe was sufficiently cool for atoms to form.
What is CERN:
-- CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is one of the world's largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works.
-- Founded in 1954, the CERN Laboratory sits astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It was one of Europe's first joint ventures and now has 20 Member States, plus 6 actively participant observers including the United States and Russia.
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Mark Scerri
Sep 11th 2008, 14:11
it is always extremely difficult to predict whether a certain scientific discovery will be beneficial or otherwise e.g way back in the earlier part of the 20th century, when scientists were investigating the quantum mechanical magnetic properties of atomic nuclei, no one did and in fact no one could have predicted that this would have lead to the development of MRI and yet today millions of people benefit from the use of this medical imaging device. Same argument can be applied to the discovery of positrons and the development of positron emission tomography.
The advancement of knowledge is always beneficial, so the price tag should never be determining factor in deciding whether a particular discovery is ‘useful’, apart from the fact labelling a discovery as useful or otherwise smacks much of utilitarianism…
D Farrugia
Sep 10th 2008, 22:29
As a science enthusiast this experiment is both fascinating and bewildering...a dream to see it work and to know what it means.
To whoever is complaining that this money is ill spent should just wake up and smell the coffee. Science is the guarantee of a better future for all. Better to feed the poor? ..there is much around the world that we can do without and instead do just that. Countries like the US spend hundreds or thousand times more the cost of the LHC on weapons and warfare. With US$9bln you won't even buy one stealth bomber...
Let science & medicine prosper. This is money well spent.
Marc Anthony Azzopardi
Sep 10th 2008, 22:01
On the question of how best to spend $9 billion, I will add one thing that you should all ponder on! I have nothing against charity or Christian brotherhood, However:
The people dying of hunger these days are mostly those whose forefathers wasted their time and energy hitting each other with sticks and stones rather than developing their knowhow, infrastructure, a sustainable economy and political stability. You only reap what you sow.
We were all born equal and what we have is what we worked for.
We are where we are today, with the luxury of a meal a day only because our forefathers spent all they had protecting what they had, while learning and teaching us how the world works. We owe a lot to scientific knowledge. We would not even have a bowl of rice to spare to our neighbours if you were to remove science from our history.
So be careful, Think before you speak!
$9 billion is a small amount of money to spend on an experiment whose outcome will teach us things that could profoundly affect the way we and our children live tomorrow. Future generations will thank us for our sacrifices and efforts.
Joe Borg
Sep 10th 2008, 21:28
yeah.. to keep things on topic we can say that arpanet is the "big bang" of the internet, and email or 3w are only services provided on the internet... thanks to the arpanet big bang, email and web surfing are now common comodity to anyone...
i hope with this experiment, they do actually find something new that changes our lifes to the better... such as new sources of clean energy....
as for the poor hungry people in africa and anywhere in the world.. this has nothing to do with that so i would avoid this topic...
Francesca Vella
Sep 10th 2008, 20:59
Sure, but Arpanet was really the predecessor of the internet.
It is Sir Tim Berners-Lee who is considered to be the "Father of the Web". And CERN is where it was born in 1990.
Sir Tim had put forward a proposal and developed the concept with the help of Robert Cailliau.
Sir Tim created a hypertext programme that was used on a computer network (referred to as the World Wide Web) and at the very beginning, it was used by scientists who shared research findings.
M Bonello
Sep 10th 2008, 20:53
It is totally incredible how some ppl are still so sceptic of the such things.
CERN particle collider, will finally get some answers to certain things like the big bang, energy transfer, matter and anti-matter and certain areas in quantum physics. It can provide answers to the current energy and oil crisis, and even to the food crisis.
It is totally irrelevant to whether God exists or no, these are some of the current issues in global news. Cern particle accelerator will allow humans to study how the transfer of energy occured to create life.
This is totally incredible how some people in this day and age, are still closing their mind to such things.
I'm a person with a medical background, so I will just mention one thing, people said the same thing when Watson and Crick were researching the structure of DNA, or when the Human Genome Project was mapped out. Thank God they didn't listen, because now we have answers to some of the most mindboggling medical problems.
John Meilak
Sep 10th 2008, 20:52
The understanding of the basic building blocks of the universe will enable us to solve much more complex problems. Spending money on such an undertaking is well worth it. If that money was spent on feeding people, the result would be: more hungry people. I'd rather spend money to teach them basic farming techniques then sending missionaries with bags of tuna cans.
The understanding of the universe transcends everything else.
Fransoaise Fleurant
Sep 10th 2008, 20:23
Sinclair Calleja,
Actually I was referring to your comment in connection with Malta’s rank in terms of technology, not food. - :)
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 18:44
@ Joe Borg
...but at CERN, the World Wide Web was invented in 1990 by Tim Barners-Lee, initially intended for the publication of scientific results. The Web is the part of the Internet that is viewable by the web browser. Other services, such as e-mail and file-transfer still make use of the Internet infrastructure, but were invented long before in computer science departments at Universities in the US.
Joe Borg
Sep 10th 2008, 18:37
small correction @Graham Cocker:
CERN did not invent the internet. The internet has its origins in the US in the late 60s as arpanet.
and i don't know how the god exists question can be answered with this experiment.. anyways..
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 18:36
Mr Crocker, I'm not sure whether this experiment can actually prove or disprove God's existence. Any attempts made in the past have unfortunately revealed no evidence for this. And it's not surprising, since, by definition of some, God stands outside the domain of physics. This, in academic circles, is called NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria). If NOMA is true, then God-like effects like prayer-answering and supernatural intervention are not possible, by definition of NOMA. If NOMA is false, then the presence of a God should be detectable experimentally, such as through prayer-answering. Studies in this area so far have failed (unfortunately) to demonstrate anything.
Graham Crocker
Sep 10th 2008, 18:19
Oh my god, there are people who think their ideas are better than the biggest brains of this century.
This is one of the most important things in this century and you are worried about people starving of hunger, something that has been normal throughout human civilisation?
This experiment will answer questions like who were are? does God exist? Ect
Not to mention, give us the ability to make our own matter with its own unique specialized quality, which could ....produce new types of food for poor people.
Its not like money wasn't already spent to make food cheaper (GM, organic, pesticides).
What they doing at CERN is groundbreaking, there is nothing ground breaking about feeding poor people, because the problem is humanity itself and not technology.
Also get off the Internet, whoever criticised CERN.
They invented it, why don't you stop using it as a protest against them?
And get the money you don't spend on broadband and give it to the poor.
yeah ...that's right ...so shut up.
Andrew Martinelli
Sep 10th 2008, 17:57
@ R. Zammit, I. Camilleri etc...
Help the poor? Sure.. Why don't you sell your car and get a bike? Or sell your mobile an make do with fixed line telephony? Or maybe you could sell your house and live in a cave. Think about the savings on water an electricity!
Progress is entrenched in the human race, we have always fought to enhance our standard of living. In the past, scientific progress gave us electricity, radio, telephony, internet, transport.. you name it. Successful LHC experiments will give us deeper insights on the Big Bang theory, and a better understanding on how to combat global warming and cancer amongst other things.
The LHC is the result of over 50 years of research. You say things can, or will probably go wrong. Where is your Masters in Particle Physics?
He who does not try has already failed. Fear of failure will not yield progress. Risks are taken everyday by people who are willing to change for the better. I'm willing to take that risk.
F.Psaila
Sep 10th 2008, 17:43
@Ramon Zammit
What is this fuss all about? $9B? Have you thought of the fact that most of the same countries that funded this reasonable sum of money are spending the same amount individually per year in arms arsenals? This would be the waste of money you are so worried about.
Who told you that we should feed the poor African countries, under what obligations? They are much richer than us, in fact they can even be able to sustain us after feeding their own people.
@Sinclair Calleja
We don't need to teach them how to fish, the problem is they already have the fish, they just don't want to share it. I don't see where our help fits in here.
The problem with the poor people in Africa is that these people don't want to fight for their own good. Go there and see it for yourself then you'll see who is wrong or right.
Don't you all forget that our ancestors paid with their own life for us to enjoy what we have now.
D Suda
Sep 10th 2008, 17:25
400 years after Galileo Galilei, it seems that science is still considered a threat to religion by somet. Judging by this blog here at least ...
Joe Borg
Sep 10th 2008, 17:20
I also wish those $9billion were spent better....... like paying off my home loan, for example... lol...
but its not clear to me how this was funded.. if its a private consortium, i'd say they have the damn right to spend their money how the hell they like.. no one is telling you how to spend your savings.....
Francesca Abela
Sep 10th 2008, 16:32
When are we going to learn to debate and accept different opinions without bringing in the subject of religion ?
Francesca Abela
Sep 10th 2008, 16:28
@Ramon Zammit
No Ramon, I have not at all given up helping and have always done and will continue to do my bit to help even, if it is a drop in the ocean.
You seem to have given up on science or rather give it no consideration at all. Science is not always used for war arm and nuclear weaponry. Also, if we have to use your arguments then what about the millions being spent on wars which bring nothing but destruction ultimately and no real peace in today's world.
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 16:08
@ Mr Camilleri.
Definitely. Science does not guarantee a brighter future. People will remain people, and being satisfied with what you've has a deeper philosophical implication than merely 'how' the universe works. As regards to the Bible, I've already made this point in my other posts but I repeat it here: Science is based on evidence. Science concludes things by observing things, making experiments to reproduce the behaviour, and coming to rational conclusions. Science is never satisfied with its own answers, but rather, keeps on questioning further details in search an ultimate truth, and for the benefit of our material well-being. Religion, on the other hand, is based on faith, i.e. taking something as obviously true without having evidence for it. Time and time again, we have been proven that scientific discovery has made certain religious teachings obsolete (or rather, we are given a different "symbolic" interpretation of these teachings, which causes less harm to the faithful). I personally do not agree with this tactic, since, as you mentioned, science and religion can sometimes portray a diametrically opposite view of reality. Personally, I feel safer in the hands of science. I respect others who choose differently.
Marvic Aguis
Sep 10th 2008, 16:02
Any body interested to read what The Quran ad Islam says about the universe creation, please read Quran and modern science-compatible or incompatible? By Dr. Zakir Naik
http://www.ahmed-deedat.net/modules.php?name=myBooks2&op=listt&cat=7
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 15:55
Ms Fleurant,
Quote: "' The fact that we have plenty of food ourselves (by ourselves I mean the technologically developed countries in the world) ' .......... Is Malta included????"
Maltese people are among the most obese in the world. So yes, I would say so!
Ivan Camilleri
Sep 10th 2008, 15:52
@Sinclair calleja,
I too am grateful towards science & the fruits we reap from the discoveries made. But in such a huge funded project were something or a lot of things can go wrong ( i read this from the official CERN statement ), i tend to be a bit cautious. The problem i have with advanced scientists ( apologies beforehand if you may be one of them), is that some of them try to prove a diametrical opposite picture other than what the Bible teaches in matters which happened thousands & millions of years ago!! I don't even agree completely with your view that science can change the world with new discoveries. Granted, we are living a much better life with such commodities around us but do you really think that this world is heading towards a brighter future? All i see nowadays is just wars emerging here & there, deploying thousands of troops, equipped with latest technology weapons & "sat navigated missiles" which may well TOO be the result of scientific research.......what do you think?
Francesca Vella
Sep 10th 2008, 15:37
Some of these comments go to show that certain people have simply taken into
consideration the price tag attached to this experiment, rather than
its magnitude and importance.
By way of such reasoning i.e. "...could
have fed a lot of people with that money..." probably no discoveries would have
ever been made. What's more, if money was the solution to developing
countries, then the world may have long solved all their problems.
@ Ivan Camilleri
Just because you believe God created the universe,
it does not mean everyone else does. Some people, are, yes, interested in the world we live in, what it is made up of and how it came about. It may be nonsense to you, but it
certainly isn't to many people.
Fransoaise Fleurant
Sep 10th 2008, 15:36
Sinclair Calleja
' The fact that we have plenty of food ourselves (by ourselves I mean the technologically developed countries in the world) ' .......... Is Malta included????
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 15:26
Mr Zammit, are you really aware that so many things around you are the direct result of scientific discovery? Let me mention a few: MRI, CT Scan, X-ray machines, DNA tests, medicine, computers, telephones, mobiles, wired and wireless communication, digital cameras, GPS, satellite communication and broadcast, computer networks and the Internet, computer software reducing costs in businesses and bringing all this to you at affordable prices, programmable washing machines, car safety equipment and fuel efficiency controllers, DVDs, BlueRay... I can go on, but I hope this has convinced you that far from nuking, we are reaping benefits. Military weaponry has improved as well, true, but this is not the reasons countries go to war. War has been with us since the beginnings of civilisation unfortunately. What are you really afraid of, Mr Zammit? Change?
Neil Mallia
Sep 10th 2008, 15:23
I don't understand how some people say that this is "nonsense". Most of today's technologies, that all of us use every day, have begun from a big nonsense. Some, of the biggest "nonsense" are the electricity, telecommunications and many other big human advances. But people that do not care about science, all of this is nonsense to them. As an enginneering student, I get interested with projects like this which surely will help scientists to go deeper in some aspects of science, with the result of improving some techonolgy. Then when a new technology is done with the help of such a project, people will use it and it will be no nonsense anymore. If countries such as Europe and USA did not invest millions (and billions) of pounds in such "nonsense"in the past, maybe we are still without electricity, computers and other basic things, and above all maybe we are poor and like other 3rd world countries which do not care about technology and science and invest all their money in war equipment.
As a personal opinion I do not think that technology must stop here, but it must keep on improving, also if it is very expensive!!
Kevin Borg
Sep 10th 2008, 15:17
@ Ramon Zammit
Your argument is the same as the one brought up by many that the Vatican should sell its arts, sculptures and paintings to feed the hungry. In my opinion these are very shallow arguments.
Reserch and development carried out by CERN is an investment in the future of civilisation. What if back in the renaissance the Popes who commissioned such projects as Sistine Chapel would have thought the same as you are doing? We would surely not have the artistic heritage we can see today.
Civilisation is expressed through the achievements of mankind. In 1500's these achievements were artistic. During the 1700's and 1800's mankind, besides arts, expressed itself in music and created masterpieces such as Beethoven's symphonies. Today's civilization is expressed through mankind's quest to learn more and develop its scientific know how. Today's scientists are the Michelangelo, the Bernini and the Beethoven of yesterday.
There is nothing wrong in feeding the poor. But if this deed is carried out at the cost of research and development then our civilization would surely be writing its own death sentence.
J. Pace
Sep 10th 2008, 15:15
Incredible how people can be so naive. Science is what makes our life more comfortable and innovative. Science is what brings forward technology to cure new diseases and thousands of other things impossible to list here. I just read an article of a research going to build bionic fingers and hands. Bionic legs have been around for few years now and give the amputees a new life. Once the research on fingers research is complete, same research can abe applied into other useful areas useful to everyone! Is this also a waste of money? And the LHC experiment, they are not just researching on how the universe was created but a number of other things, but the media only mention this since this is what most people understands.
Africa needs money - but to educate the people and eliminate all the corrupt governments. Given them money to eat is a waste of money. They need education and learn how to grow and sustain themselves. But yes we give them food and cloths, but this way we are not solving their problem.
Ramon Zammit
Sep 10th 2008, 15:14
@ Francesca Abela
The poor's plight has always been in vain and from your words it seems that you gave up about helping or believing anyone can help. That is unfortunate and the best thing one can do in his lifetime is to help those in need. Spending a hefty $9 billion in an experiment which could have gone wrong is sheer madness to say the least...! The only thing that such progress seem to lead are more sophisticated weaponry and nukes!
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 15:02
Mr Grech, please read more about the LHC before speaking. The main purpose of the LHC experiment is not to discover what happened a few nanoseconds after the big bang, but rather the discovery of particles which would have been there in the beginning of the Universe, such as the Higgs-Boson particle, anti-matter and quarks (the elements that make up protons and neutrons) which are as yet hypothetical. These will have huge implications on physics as we know it today, and may change the way science progresses in the future. The experiment is not about what happend in the past, but rather, were we're going with our scientific discoveries in the future! I would venture to hypothesize things like anti-gravity (flying without wings but rather by blocking the effects fo gravitons on matter, if gravitons actually exist), and cleaner sources of energy from the atom. These are just things that might come out. Only time will tell what will be discovered! May I remind you that at one point in history, somebody discovered the world was round, and he got silenced for it since the majority believed otherwise...
Francesca Abela
Sep 10th 2008, 14:55
To the people who are not interested in the evolution of science I say - keep your heads in the sand if you prefer to live in the medieval era. You say that the money would have been better spent giving it to the poor and hungry. As long as the rich countries keep on giving money to corrupt governments who in turn keep the money for themselves nothing can solve this problem. It would be better for rich countries to provide the know-how rather than give money.
Paul Borg
Sep 10th 2008, 14:46
Without science and technology we would still be living in caves!
Ivan Camilleri has a right to believe that 'god' created the universe, but others who are not so convinced also have the right to delve deeper.
Without science Ramon would not have a TV to see the African children dying on!!
I suppose that we may as well not waste money on sports, leisure and anything else that costs money and just go to work, feed and cloth our family to the minimum requirements and send the rest of our pay to Africa!!! I assume that that is what all you guys moaning about wasted money are doing!!!
apgrech
Sep 10th 2008, 14:33
Is it so important to learn about the big bang that happened a few million years ago? I think it would be more fruitful if scientists and politicians prevant a big bang in the future and use the money to help poor people.
I personally don't care how the universe came about but I care about how the future of the world I'm living in will be.
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 13:45
Mr Camilleri, I agree with you that we should find solutions to war and poverty. Unfortunately solutions to war and poverty are not directly to domain of science, but rather, of politicians. On the other hand, many people DO care about what happens when two particles collide. These people have invented the PN-junction, which led to the invention of the transistor, and later, the silicon chip. This has made possible the desktop computer, the Internet, high tech transportation devices (e.g. commercial airplanes, and improved car safety and efficiency), nuclear energy, our limited space travel and space exploration, and, maybe more importantly, revolutionised medical science and advancement. The downside is that, like a knife, technology can be used to bring about destruction as well, but that is ultimately our own responsibility, and the ones who represent us (politicians). So, I would be careful before firing such statements next time round. You should be grateful things are the way they are today, or we'd still be living in the middle ages.
Sinclair Calleja
Sep 10th 2008, 13:25
Mr Zammit, I do not follow your reasoning. The fact that we have plenty of food ourselves (by ourselves I mean the technologically developed countries in the world) is a direct result of scientific progress. While it is true that we should be helping the less fortunate, we must keep the scientific progress going on to continue making our lives easier. Easier lives for us will help us be in an even better position to help 3rd world countries. What use is giving them the fish without teaching them how to fish themselves? Only scientific progress can ensure a better life for everyone on the planet.
There are much more sources of money wastage you could have complained about, and you would have been correct about them. But how can you complain on the very same thing that provides you with a PC on your desk (think silicon chips), on efficient logistics (think supermarket IT systems), and advanced medical science (think MRI) which is making your life such a breeze? It's beyond me.
Ramon Zammit
Sep 10th 2008, 12:44
@ Alexander Farrugia
I understand that everything comes with a cost especially research on a large scale as this one. But isn't human life more precious than anything else? Will there be a time when we wont see African children dying on their mother hands on TV? Considering the huge investment in this project, I am sure even if a portion of this money was allocated to help these people it would helped a lot. But once again they have to wait more until someone realizes and in the meantime die....
David Seychell
Sep 10th 2008, 12:40
Scientific discoveries brings new technologies. Let's hope that these new technologies will be useful for more mundane problems.
L Micallef
Sep 10th 2008, 12:26
Ramon, you are right. Not only that, but now they also risk the entire world's life. The Universe expanded rapidly and if they re-create the scenario the experiment might go out of hand......
Ivan Camilleri
Sep 10th 2008, 12:25
I couldn't agree more with you Ramon......But as you said, poverty comes as a second compared to such "non-sense". I believe God created the universe & that's that! But apparently we have people around the world obsessed with such ( i repeat ) "nonsense" !!!! Who cares what happens when two particles collide? Is it more important than trying to find solutions to attack poverty & war around the world? I wonder......
Alexander Farrugia
Sep 10th 2008, 12:23
As a Physics teacher I'm glad the LHC's activation is creating so much public interest in Particle Physics. Unfortunately, some, like Mr Ramon Zammit, think that it is all a waste of money which "could have fed a lot of people"...
Well, one must realise that the age of scientists working alone in shabby home labs is obsolete. Cutting-edge physics requires very expensive resources, both mechanical and human. And then, if they're so inclined, people like Mr Zammit should lead by example, sell the PC they use to send comments to timesofmalta.com and give the proceeds to charity... now that would be interesting, wouldn't it?
Tonio Galea
Sep 10th 2008, 12:22
What is the probability that this experiment fails and all the money wasted? I guess it's very high. That would be a shame.
Ramon Zammit
Sep 10th 2008, 11:48
The 10 billion Swiss franc ($9 billion)...could have fed a lot of people with that money, preventing them from dying and provide them with shelter...oh well science is more interesting it seems.