We still have another month until anything actually HAPPENS.

Fail. All of you.

http://resonaances.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-will-lhc-discover.html

The excitement generated by the LHC kick-off last week is still in the air. I'm beginning to realize that soon we will k.n.o.w. Which means that it's the last moment for gambling and wild guessing. Here are my expectations. The probabilities were computed using all currently available data and elaborated Bayesian statistics.

Higgs boson. Probability 80%
Peter Higgs' kid is ugly and problematic, however his big advantage is that he does his job right. Firstly, he knows how to break electroweak symmetry in such a way that the scattering amplitudes of W and Z bosons remain unitary at high energies. Secondly, if he is not much heavier than 100 GeV, he is consistent with stringent precision tests performed by LEP and Tevatron. No one else can achieve both without complicated gymnastics. That's why Higgs is the safest bet.

Non-SM Higgs boson. Probability 50%
The Standard Model uniquely predicts the couplings of the Higgs to all fermions and gauge bosons. From experience, these couplings are very sensitive to new physics in any form. That's why a precise measurement of the Higgs production cross section and all possible decay rates may be far more exciting than the discovery itself.

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>>8488

>Certainly, dragons are a bit safer bet.

So what you're telling me is, the LHC promises to make all my dreams come true -- riches, fame, dragons, and unicorns -- but I won't live long enough to see them thanks to that 1 in a [arbitrarily large number] chance of the LHC generating a world-ending catastrophe.

THANKS FOR NOTHING, LHC! >(

Once the LHC reveals what happened at THE Big Bang, at the point before Planck Time, and include Gravity in the Unified Field Theory and thus explain EVERYTHING (therefore no longer being a theory - same with the Big Bang), God will be out of a job.

Better get those titanium underpants ready, Jehovah, Allah, whatever your name is - because you're about to get royally buttsecksed by the scientists at CERN, courtesy of the LHC. And all that 27 Km is gonna HURT, as it & all it's discoveries ream you (and religious faith) out of existence.

>>8534
Did you know that you sound as ignorant as the fundies themselves? The LHC isn't going to explain anything exciting like the origin of the universe. All the experiments are in the realm of highly theoretical physics, will mean very little to the average non-physicist, and will have very little practical application. That's not to say the research won't be useful eventually, but the LHC isn't going to stumble upon "the mysteries of the universe" as you seem to hope. Its discoveries won't put a dent in our current religious institutions.

>>8534It cannot even recreate the Big Bang, only conditions about 10^-15 second at the best, to recreate the universes beginning, there would be a need to have something with the mass of a galaxy in a few picometers to come within 10^-25seconds or so, to reach back to plank scale, you would need 98% of the energy of the universe to be compressed into a singularity. (gogo astrophysics)

^ oh is that all.

I think the LHC is going to be much ado about nothing. i doubt we'll even get so far as to inderstand mass or gravity, let alone the big bang. We'll get a lot of scientists speding our money doing useless things with protons.

Just a few measly billions and most of it not from USA. Bush 1 pulled the plug on the Superconducting Supercollider in the early 90's, science has relied on Tevatron ever after, then the budget for Fermilab got nearly fully slashed last year due to political shenanigans. Funding for CERN participation got slashed too AFAIK. Physicists have, however, been promised a "wonderful budget" (sic) for this year. Har Har. Humpf.

We WILL need serious money the first time we want to have this 2 lightseconds long linear collider, powered by sun-orbiting solar collectors...

http://www.slate.com/id/2199573/pagenum/all/

They're turning on the Large Hadron Collider. Don't expect the Higgs boson to show up.

By James Owen Weatherall

Posted Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008, at 6:56 AM ET

[...] Last summer, I argued that the discovery of the Higgs could spell disaster for the field. If we find the Higgs, the Standard Model of high-energy physics would provide a theoretical account of all known particles and their interactions. Physicists could use it to predict the results of every particle accelerator experiment ever performed with near-perfect accuracy, given a big enough computer. But the Standard Model isn't intuitive enough to provide insight into why the world happens to be the way it is. Most physicists hope that there's a deeper, more revealing theory waiting to be discovered; if all the LHC finds is the Higgs, they will be sorely disappointed. Fortunately—and this I didn't mention last year—there's no particular reason to expect that the Higgs will show up.[...]

End of the world was postponed by two months.

The LHC is down due to a failure in an electric coupling. Now they need to bring this part back to normal temprature to fix it, so no chance of any strangelets until its cooled back down.

pic related?

I wish that I could get some elaboration on the reason for this extra use of funds, rather than what it's being used for.

What's the real objective of all of this conflict in the middle east?

I knew they'd sent in unmanned drones into Pakistan, but are they bombing now?

Nobody really knows. "Missile strike" could be anything from cruise stuff launched from nuclear attack subs in the Gulf to JDAMs dropped from a B-52. Point is, while you click on Taliban in this Big Country, a Dialog opens saying "Continuing Might Seriously Damage Your Stability. Yes/No/Cancel?" Hmm.... Let's go phase 2.

>>8499

To get bin Laden, stupid.

>>8522

C'm on man, he's sipping tea in Amsterdam.

>>8522
Dude, even if they managed to find/kill Bin Laden, it wouldn't do shit. There will still be terrorists with Muslim sentiments all over the place. You can't completely get rid of any kind of terrorist, anywhere. Period. They're all over the world, not just in Pakistan. There will always be more. It's a waste of time and money to go after them. What's the point, is this some sort of "revenge" for 9/11? Not a strong enough reason to get up in Pakistan's business, and now Pakistan's getting pissed off.

>>8526

>>Dude, even if they managed to find/kill Bin Laden, it wouldn't do shit.

I think that's a big; "NO DUHHHHH."

It doesn't change the fact that finding bin Laden is the reason for all this. WTF. Stupid much?

>>8554
If it's such a big "NO DUHHH", the people in charge know it as well. It doesn't really matter if it's Bin Laden's fault or not, it's just a big pipe dream.

>>8499
I'm thinking the rationale is something along the lines of "they had extra to spare in this budget".

>>8557

Pipe dream or not, it doesn't change the fact that getting Binny boy is the main reason for all of this. Stop being such a faggot.

Turns out that the liberal-minded muslims are only shutting up about this shit because they're embarrassed. Film at 11.

Uhhhh... no. They have not. Judges are, as a rule, very very proud of their national legal traditions.

I hear these things existed during alcohol prohibition in various countries around the world.

Still, I wonder -- smuggling, vodka, from Russia into Estonia? That's like smuggling seawater from the atlantic into the pacific.

As soon as wazirastan kicks out the Taliban and al-Qaida, America stops the bombings.

PS -- this is the Obama plan if you're paying attention to those things.

Obama is retarded in those things (though less than McCain) and should worry about the US economy or something.

Tribesmen to fight US if incursions continue

3,000-strong jirga accuses Kabul of misleading US about Qaeda presence in FATA

By Iqbal Khattak

PESHAWAR: Every Ahmedzai Wazir tribesman will fight US forces on Afghani soil if their incursions into South Waziristan continue, a 3,000-strong jirga ruled on Wednesday.

The jirga consisting of pro-government tribal elders and pro-Taliban clerics was held in Wana.

“Each and every Ahmedzai Wazir tribesman, be young or old, will take up arms against the US and fight alongside the Pakistan Army,” eyewitnesses told Daily Times, quoting pro-Taliban Noor Muhammad reading a unanimous resolution at the end of the jirga.

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>>8566 Officials say at least five people were killed when a US drone fired missiles at a suspected militant target."

Five terrorists killed? Sounds good to me.

Jeff Huber | September 16, 2008

Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki wants U.S. troops to leave Iraq. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani wants U.S. troops to stay out of Pakistan. In the former instance we'll be thrown out of a country after occupying it for six or more years. In the latter case, we'll get thrown out of a country before we go through the trouble of occupying it.

That's assuming, of course, that young Mr. Bush is serious about recognizing the sovereignty of our little buddies in the war on terror, which maybe isn't such a good assumption to make.

On Wednesday September 3 Kayani said, “No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan.” That was the same day that American Special Operations forces pulled a commando raid that chased Taliban militants or al Qaeda militants or "other" militants or some combination of the three out of Afghanistan and across the border into Pakistan and killed about twenty people, mostly women and children. The militants, whatever kind of militants they were exactly, apparently got away.

(...)

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