Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the World Yet?

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Seriously. It's not a rickrolled link. sigh. Just click it.



From http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/large_hadon_collider/index.html, pulled off Twitter:

• @lisardggY: LHC is the new Anthrax. LHC is the new 9/11. LHC is the new Red Scare. LHC is hiding in your closet. LHC is under your bed. 
• @infogasm: @thegirlinblue0 The LHC killed JFK and Martin Luther KIng. It also invented Milk Duds and black licorice. That's just what I heard...
• @aquaphase: The LHC can only be to blame for my very weird dreams last night. In case they weren't dreams, watch out for the gibbon-people.
• @kerryb: iPhone restore failed (corrupt backup). Now up and running again, but with no music, photos, e-mail or app data yet. I blame the LHC.
• @roguepuppet: @chattyDM I blame the LHC for lots of things.. including late dinners and less sex.. The Ogre works on some of the computer programming 4 it
• @egculbertson: @knomat, @amyroo: Twitter disturbances definitely something to blame on LHC. What does that mean for the fail whale, tho? 
• @Atomicow: I blame the LHC for my jaw problems. A rogue particle collided with my face. 
• @wolfmank: is blaming the LHC for crashing his Mac and screwing up his Aperture Library... grrr Attempting repairs. Apple don't fail me now!!!
• @regularjen: Did the LHC 'splode the world? No, but I think it was a punk and poured sugar in my internet connection's gas tank. I blame science. :P
• @LenderFlexCEO: So I'm walking along and suddenly everything is made of puppies. Then it's not. I blame the LHC. Someone needs to clean this up...
• @BrotherMagneto: Guys, there's a black hole in my office. It's called Outlook. I blame the LHC. 
• @TheDawkman: I don't know why everybody is so worried about the LHC. It's gonna help keep America safe. Remember 9-11 people! 
• @darronschall: My monitor just randomly shut off.. was going to blame the LHC, then I realized my dog turned off my power strip.

Also from http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/the-bosons-that.html#previouspost

LHC FAQ in 140 Characters or Less

Particle physics is complicated. Tweets are not. So, naturally, answering your questions about the Large Hadron Collider in Twitter format, i.e. 140 characters or less, could help you understand some physics.

Q: WTF is a Large Hadron Collider?
A: Hadrons are the parent family for protons and neutrons. The collider will smash protons together to see what they're made of.

Q: What are ATLAS and CMS and all these other acronyms?
A: They are particle detectors. ATLAS and CMS are the big ones. Each detector is designed to carry out a set of experiments.

Q: How does the Large Hadron Collider work?
A: It smashes particles moving at near the speed of light together. Then, detectors look for very rare particles in the wreckage.

Q: Is smashing things together to look for progressively smaller and rarer particles really how particle physics is done?
A: More or less: yes. Theoretical physicists work out the math. The experiments get run to see whose math matches the world.

Q: Gimme the stats on the Collider? Factoid stats.
A: 17 miles around. 9,000 magnets. 7,000 scientists. $10 billion. Operating temp: -456.25 F. Power used: 120 MW. Network: 1.8+Gb/s.

Q: Who paid for the Large Hadron Collider?
A: You did! But not nearly as much as your European cousins. The US contribution stands at $531 million. Total cost: $10 billion.

Q: How does a particle detector work?
A: They work like digital cameras with 150 megapixels taking snapshots 600 million times a second! Then algorithms look for interesting stuff.

Q: Is there an end 'product/goal' that the average Joe will eventually see from these experiments? ie:teleportation?
A: Not directly, but confirmation that physicists understand the universe would be nice. And you never know. The engineering can lead to other things.

Q: When you smash particles at nearly the speed of light isn't that going to release a lot of energy?
A: Yes. The highest-energy collisions will reach 14 trillion electron volts.

Q: How many particles are actually colliding?
A: Hacked Wikipedia: The beam pipes contain 1.0×10-9 grams of hydrogen, which
would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.

Q: Is the Large Hadron Collider a threat to human civilization and the existence of the Earth?
A: No. Einstein's relativity says it's impossible. And, just in case, studies of highly-energetic cosmic rays hitting earth rule it out, too.