There is an awesome article in Scientific American this month that explains the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the biggest and most complicated particle physics experiment ever seen.
This is an amazing machine and will probably lead to revolutionary understandings of how everything works. What are they looking for? The Higgs Particle, (believed to be responsible for imbuing other particles with mass).
This is a must read article for those who care about science and our understandings of the world.
I just uploaded a bunch of photos I took on our CERN tour on Saturday morning and will have the video of the tour up on March 3 as part of our launch package on FastCompany.tv.
After this summer it will be impossible to tour the collision chamber while the machine is running because when the experiment is running it will be quite dangerous to be down there.
Thank you so much to Ben Segal (computer geek) and Frank Taylor (physicist) for giving us the tour. If you don’t know Ben, you should. He was Tim Berners-Lee’s mentor at CERN. Has worked in the computing center there since the 1970s and was responsible for bringing TCP/IP and Unix to CERN. Both of which were pre-existing conditions for Tim’s invention of the Web.
I loved the sticker on the computer that Tim used to invent the World Wide Web. It says, in Tim’s own handwriting, “This is a server. Do not power it down!” Yeah, that was the first Web server. It was like going to church for me.
UPDATE: If you visit the “CERN” tag over on Flickr you’ll find tons of other photos, including some other people who were on the same tour.
Scobleizer 
aaaargh.. so jealous. How awesome, lucky beastie.
Great article link too.
I’ll watch out for the vid on fastcompany.tv 😀
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aaaargh.. so jealous. How awesome, lucky beastie.
Great article link too.
I’ll watch out for the vid on fastcompany.tv 😀
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Is… is that a Higgs boson on the floor in that first picture?!?
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Is… is that a Higgs boson on the floor in that first picture?!?
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The LHC is a truely awesome machine, and the engineering challenges to get it to work are immense, including things you wouldn’t think of, like the particle dump.
The amount of power contained in the beam is phenomenal, and dissipating that amount of heat is a surprisingly hard challenge.
Personally, I’m hoping not that they’ll find the Higgs, but that they’ll see something completely unexpected, opening up a whole new branch of inquiry.
Also, everyone focuses on the giant CMS and ATLAS experiements, but some of the smaller ones like LHCb are interesting too, working on things like CP-violation (the idea that anti-matter behaves differently to matter) and suchlike.
Makes me glad I’m studying Physics right now 🙂
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The LHC is a truely awesome machine, and the engineering challenges to get it to work are immense, including things you wouldn’t think of, like the particle dump.
The amount of power contained in the beam is phenomenal, and dissipating that amount of heat is a surprisingly hard challenge.
Personally, I’m hoping not that they’ll find the Higgs, but that they’ll see something completely unexpected, opening up a whole new branch of inquiry.
Also, everyone focuses on the giant CMS and ATLAS experiements, but some of the smaller ones like LHCb are interesting too, working on things like CP-violation (the idea that anti-matter behaves differently to matter) and suchlike.
Makes me glad I’m studying Physics right now 🙂
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Did you also see the computing center at CERN? They’ve got a few massive sets of machines and they also have the Internet Exchange point for that part of Europe.
These machines are the local computer clusters and a huge Oracle database cluster.
Did you also got a talk about how the data is going to be analyzed? In this case by using a computer Grid to consolidate all the computer cluster and storage resources of the participating institutes into one logical system.
This is LCG (LHC Computing Grid) which spans the globe to receive, distribute, storage and number crunch on the ~15 PetaByte a year that only Atlas is producing (and there are three more of these experiments using the LHC).
If you happen to be in Amsterdam, contact me and you can tour the biggest Internet Exchange point on the planet and the rest of our lab. 😉
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Did you also see the computing center at CERN? They’ve got a few massive sets of machines and they also have the Internet Exchange point for that part of Europe.
These machines are the local computer clusters and a huge Oracle database cluster.
Did you also got a talk about how the data is going to be analyzed? In this case by using a computer Grid to consolidate all the computer cluster and storage resources of the participating institutes into one logical system.
This is LCG (LHC Computing Grid) which spans the globe to receive, distribute, storage and number crunch on the ~15 PetaByte a year that only Atlas is producing (and there are three more of these experiments using the LHC).
If you happen to be in Amsterdam, contact me and you can tour the biggest Internet Exchange point on the planet and the rest of our lab. 😉
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there is nothing in the universe without mass the sooner all concerned realise the quicker they will understand you waste your time the universe is smaller than your imagination the universe is finite i, we, you, us and them will never know what a bummer good luck
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there is nothing in the universe without mass the sooner all concerned realise the quicker they will understand you waste your time the universe is smaller than your imagination the universe is finite i, we, you, us and them will never know what a bummer good luck
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is all this in anyway contributing to the prevention of climate change?would the billions not be better spent to improve the living conditions without damaging the environment?
here are all the superbrains fartarsing around theorising slapping each other on the back getting paid enourmous salaries for what.Is the price of bread geiing cheaper?who wants to live on mars?
the brains should be utilised to create a peaceful world where man and nature can co-exist withpout harming the planet which is mankinds only home
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is all this in anyway contributing to the prevention of climate change?would the billions not be better spent to improve the living conditions without damaging the environment?
here are all the superbrains fartarsing around theorising slapping each other on the back getting paid enourmous salaries for what.Is the price of bread geiing cheaper?who wants to live on mars?
the brains should be utilised to create a peaceful world where man and nature can co-exist withpout harming the planet which is mankinds only home
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As the founder of the Christian Film & Television Commission and the website http://www.movieguide.org, and a devoted Christian, it is my considered and expert opinion that such research by CERN is a complete waste of time and money.
Intelligent Design will explain all the universe to Man, we we the children of God will only turn to the Bible. I have no understanding of biology, or most sciences, and treat Darwin’s theories with the requisite contempt due from my belief system. Therefore I can say with certainty that the statement “God did it” or “God created it” or “It’s one of God’s Mysteries” will easily and satisfactorily cover any and all questions to arise from Satan’s lapdog, “science”.
America needs to stop sliding away from the fundamentalist Christianity that blessed our Founding Fathers into starting this intentionally Christian nation of America. The Bible is the Word of God, and that Word is final on all topics, including the subatomic.
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As the founder of the Christian Film & Television Commission and the website http://www.movieguide.org, and a devoted Christian, it is my considered and expert opinion that such research by CERN is a complete waste of time and money.
Intelligent Design will explain all the universe to Man, we we the children of God will only turn to the Bible. I have no understanding of biology, or most sciences, and treat Darwin’s theories with the requisite contempt due from my belief system. Therefore I can say with certainty that the statement “God did it” or “God created it” or “It’s one of God’s Mysteries” will easily and satisfactorily cover any and all questions to arise from Satan’s lapdog, “science”.
America needs to stop sliding away from the fundamentalist Christianity that blessed our Founding Fathers into starting this intentionally Christian nation of America. The Bible is the Word of God, and that Word is final on all topics, including the subatomic.
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Esteemed Dr. Ted:
How I’d love to believe it was really you who posted! Thank goodness your message magically appeared and you didn’t have to utilize technology which sprang forth from Satan’s lapdog (is it a West Highland Terrier…by the way?) Good luck with your dot org site. Maybe CERN will blink and shut it down for a few days!
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Esteemed Dr. Ted:
How I’d love to believe it was really you who posted! Thank goodness your message magically appeared and you didn’t have to utilize technology which sprang forth from Satan’s lapdog (is it a West Highland Terrier…by the way?) Good luck with your dot org site. Maybe CERN will blink and shut it down for a few days!
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I sympathize with #9, above. Why, indeed, pursue such esoteric science now, when we are confronted with such practical, immediate problems on Earth today? I’d be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts on this question.
I consider myself a man of science, and I believe we can’t wait for a perfect world before we do our science (we would wait forever) – but the LHC nonetheless provokes this question in me. I touch on this in my blog entry here:
http://blog.uslegal.com/2008/04/16/large-hadron-collider-front-row-seat-to-the-big-bang/
The entry is mainly an attempt at a part humorous / part serious look at the simmering LHC safety concerns and the Sancho lawsuit to halt start-up.
Enjoyed your pictures, especially of the first Internet server’s sticker (!) thanks.
Bryan
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I sympathize with #9, above. Why, indeed, pursue such esoteric science now, when we are confronted with such practical, immediate problems on Earth today? I’d be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts on this question.
I consider myself a man of science, and I believe we can’t wait for a perfect world before we do our science (we would wait forever) – but the LHC nonetheless provokes this question in me. I touch on this in my blog entry here:
http://blog.uslegal.com/2008/04/16/large-hadron-collider-front-row-seat-to-the-big-bang/
The entry is mainly an attempt at a part humorous / part serious look at the simmering LHC safety concerns and the Sancho lawsuit to halt start-up.
Enjoyed your pictures, especially of the first Internet server’s sticker (!) thanks.
Bryan
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In the past month or so, I have been doing research almost daily regarding the LHC at CERN, also learning of the GRID as well.
In response to the money being better spent, to help the world, etc… it already has. If you do a little searching, you will find that the development of the GRID has answered scientific questions that help with health issues, such as finding a cure for a strain of milaria, that would have otherwise taken computers 400 plus years to solve… doing research on global warming… to save the planet… etc… please, before you respond, do some research of your own!
Now for my fear, being a fairly simple person, I wonder that re-creating the big bang… won’t re-create everything, from scratch. Now, I know that sounds simple and silly, but… from what I have read, there is a small chance, that a black hole could float down to the center of the earth and swallow it up? sounds like star trek or something, huh, maybe smaller than a Higgs boson (which they aren’t even sure exists), but the chance DOES exist… which is my point.
Sometimes science gets ahead of humanity. It makes me think of a baby playing with a hand grenade, most likely he won’t figure out how to pull the pin… does that make it ok to let him play with it?
What makes us different than the animals, is the fact that humans are capable of thinking before reacting, which turns it into an action. When someone reacts without thinking, we call them an animal.
The scientists at CERN, the backers, the governments, the warriors, are scaring me, because I am not sure they have really considered that they could be pulling the pin, like that unsupervised baby might…
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In the past month or so, I have been doing research almost daily regarding the LHC at CERN, also learning of the GRID as well.
In response to the money being better spent, to help the world, etc… it already has. If you do a little searching, you will find that the development of the GRID has answered scientific questions that help with health issues, such as finding a cure for a strain of milaria, that would have otherwise taken computers 400 plus years to solve… doing research on global warming… to save the planet… etc… please, before you respond, do some research of your own!
Now for my fear, being a fairly simple person, I wonder that re-creating the big bang… won’t re-create everything, from scratch. Now, I know that sounds simple and silly, but… from what I have read, there is a small chance, that a black hole could float down to the center of the earth and swallow it up? sounds like star trek or something, huh, maybe smaller than a Higgs boson (which they aren’t even sure exists), but the chance DOES exist… which is my point.
Sometimes science gets ahead of humanity. It makes me think of a baby playing with a hand grenade, most likely he won’t figure out how to pull the pin… does that make it ok to let him play with it?
What makes us different than the animals, is the fact that humans are capable of thinking before reacting, which turns it into an action. When someone reacts without thinking, we call them an animal.
The scientists at CERN, the backers, the governments, the warriors, are scaring me, because I am not sure they have really considered that they could be pulling the pin, like that unsupervised baby might…
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THEORETICALLY, THE MOST PROBABLE OUTCOME AT CERN LHC, WOULD BE A QUANTUM INVERSION INDUCTION WAVE FUNCTION / ORIGINATING AT THE IMPACT TARGET COORDINATES / BETWEEN 200-400 TeV / CREATING A CAUSALITY LOOP BACKWASH THROUGH THE SUPER-CONDUCTORS, AND CLOSING INSIDE THE HADRON UNIT ITSELF! A WORMHOLE WITH RELATIVISTIC SHIFTS, FOR 12-30 HOURS, OUTWARD PERIMETER 30-60 MILES; DISSIPATION OF TIME DILATION SHOULD OCCUR AFTER LHC EMERGENCY SHUT-DOWN! THE HIGGS PARTICLE WOULD BECOME ONLY A SECONDARY DISCOVERY OF LESSER CONSEQUENCE!
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THEORETICALLY, THE MOST PROBABLE OUTCOME AT CERN LHC, WOULD BE A QUANTUM INVERSION INDUCTION WAVE FUNCTION / ORIGINATING AT THE IMPACT TARGET COORDINATES / BETWEEN 200-400 TeV / CREATING A CAUSALITY LOOP BACKWASH THROUGH THE SUPER-CONDUCTORS, AND CLOSING INSIDE THE HADRON UNIT ITSELF! A WORMHOLE WITH RELATIVISTIC SHIFTS, FOR 12-30 HOURS, OUTWARD PERIMETER 30-60 MILES; DISSIPATION OF TIME DILATION SHOULD OCCUR AFTER LHC EMERGENCY SHUT-DOWN! THE HIGGS PARTICLE WOULD BECOME ONLY A SECONDARY DISCOVERY OF LESSER CONSEQUENCE!
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This is a quote from:
http://www.notepad.ch
What it is like to work here
The following quote is from a blog at Cernwatch.com, apparently from an insider at CERN LHC:
‘I am writing this blog becuase I am seeing some strange things that I have not seen before. I notice higher levels of security, and more US military presence. I hear strange rumors and weird Jokes. I think that there is more going on that what is being let out. i will report to you everything I hear and see.’
This is a quote from:
http://www.notepad.ch
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This is a quote from:
http://www.notepad.ch
What it is like to work here
The following quote is from a blog at Cernwatch.com, apparently from an insider at CERN LHC:
‘I am writing this blog becuase I am seeing some strange things that I have not seen before. I notice higher levels of security, and more US military presence. I hear strange rumors and weird Jokes. I think that there is more going on that what is being let out. i will report to you everything I hear and see.’
This is a quote from:
http://www.notepad.ch
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Since the experiments will not reach the speed of light there should be no danger. Besides, at times the speed of light my have been higher.
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Since the experiments will not reach the speed of light there should be no danger. Besides, at times the speed of light my have been higher.
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http://thelargehadroncollider.googlepages.com/
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http://thelargehadroncollider.googlepages.com/
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With half of the ‘Standard Model’ missing, shrouded within a mathematical haze of pure speculation, and the LHC being built upon these antiquated precepts, there is absolutely no way of telling what awaits CERN! It will take these experiments to extricate the physics community from their stagnated, depressing, and quagmired current positions! At least one sector of the ‘Standard Model’ shall receive a tsunami of change, that will send the mathematicians and physicists scrambling wildly within their ‘click’ groups, to hurriedly install these new, very much needed corrections! There is no doubt, that the future world desperate energy needs lie in LHC technologies; however, the production course should be traveled with extreme caution! If LHC is long-term successful, then the discoveries should lead to the manipulation of matter, luminosity (plasma), and energy; thereby obtaining the secret to a controlled and sustainable nuclear fushion!!! The LSAG ‘safety report’ covers only lower energy 2008 ‘start-up’ operation projections, and speaks nothing toward the pre-planned decade of precision energy upgrades; scheduled to begin in 2009! This same report only covers previous public dockets of concern, and nothing about the ‘new’ emerging risk assessment meetings, that are in progress ‘Behind Closed Doors’! CERN is grappling with multiple variance-calculation paradoxes, even as Michelangelo Mangano (and others) penned the now famous ‘quiet the public’ ‘Safe-Status’ safety report! Two such situations are known: #1). CERN Uncertainty RE: Quantum Time-Dilation Contraction-Calibration Equations, used for particle beam timing/focus, to maximize the optimum collisions per/second during the ‘Impact Moment’, which are being detector analyzed. This line of equations must be precise, or facility damage may result! #2). RE: ALICE heavy (Pb) ion collisions, scheduled to begin (once financed) in 2009. This project generates hyper-density plasmatic luminosity fields, that could affect a gravitational curvature; thus possibly producing a compression singularity vortex, that would engage super-symmetry ‘feed-back loops’. This would create an event-horizon expansion, and is known as the expanded: Einstein-Rosen Bridge Wormhole: THE QUANTUM WORMHOLE! Relativistic temporal (Time) shifts, and/or loss of structural integrity, are possible threshold warning signs! Director General Robert Aymar, Catherine Decosse (ALICE), Michelangelo Mangano, Stephen Hawking, CERN Theory Unit, and LSAG have entered into discussions, at this time!
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With half of the ‘Standard Model’ missing, shrouded within a mathematical haze of pure speculation, and the LHC being built upon these antiquated precepts, there is absolutely no way of telling what awaits CERN! It will take these experiments to extricate the physics community from their stagnated, depressing, and quagmired current positions! At least one sector of the ‘Standard Model’ shall receive a tsunami of change, that will send the mathematicians and physicists scrambling wildly within their ‘click’ groups, to hurriedly install these new, very much needed corrections! There is no doubt, that the future world desperate energy needs lie in LHC technologies; however, the production course should be traveled with extreme caution! If LHC is long-term successful, then the discoveries should lead to the manipulation of matter, luminosity (plasma), and energy; thereby obtaining the secret to a controlled and sustainable nuclear fushion!!! The LSAG ‘safety report’ covers only lower energy 2008 ‘start-up’ operation projections, and speaks nothing toward the pre-planned decade of precision energy upgrades; scheduled to begin in 2009! This same report only covers previous public dockets of concern, and nothing about the ‘new’ emerging risk assessment meetings, that are in progress ‘Behind Closed Doors’! CERN is grappling with multiple variance-calculation paradoxes, even as Michelangelo Mangano (and others) penned the now famous ‘quiet the public’ ‘Safe-Status’ safety report! Two such situations are known: #1). CERN Uncertainty RE: Quantum Time-Dilation Contraction-Calibration Equations, used for particle beam timing/focus, to maximize the optimum collisions per/second during the ‘Impact Moment’, which are being detector analyzed. This line of equations must be precise, or facility damage may result! #2). RE: ALICE heavy (Pb) ion collisions, scheduled to begin (once financed) in 2009. This project generates hyper-density plasmatic luminosity fields, that could affect a gravitational curvature; thus possibly producing a compression singularity vortex, that would engage super-symmetry ‘feed-back loops’. This would create an event-horizon expansion, and is known as the expanded: Einstein-Rosen Bridge Wormhole: THE QUANTUM WORMHOLE! Relativistic temporal (Time) shifts, and/or loss of structural integrity, are possible threshold warning signs! Director General Robert Aymar, Catherine Decosse (ALICE), Michelangelo Mangano, Stephen Hawking, CERN Theory Unit, and LSAG have entered into discussions, at this time!
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There is a good article about censorship at Wikipedia, preventing published peer reviewed papers from math and science professors that challenge safety assumptions. And guess who edits the Wikipedia article…. CERN employees: http://www.lhcfacts.org/?cat=124
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There is a good article about censorship at Wikipedia, preventing published peer reviewed papers from math and science professors that challenge safety assumptions. And guess who edits the Wikipedia article…. CERN employees: http://www.lhcfacts.org/?cat=124
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Contrary to what Rosemary says, we are in fact animals. We share everything.
To mention just a few traits, intelligence, language, humour, motherhood, family, enterprise, happiness, sadness, trust, loyalty, custom, work, reflex, aggression, greed and yes, love.
The difference seems to be in intelligence and “Acting without thinking”, a reflex action, a defense against preceived danger. Used in discussion, it reflects dimension of conviction, a purely human trait.
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Contrary to what Rosemary says, we are in fact animals. We share everything.
To mention just a few traits, intelligence, language, humour, motherhood, family, enterprise, happiness, sadness, trust, loyalty, custom, work, reflex, aggression, greed and yes, love.
The difference seems to be in intelligence and “Acting without thinking”, a reflex action, a defense against preceived danger. Used in discussion, it reflects dimension of conviction, a purely human trait.
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999 people out of a thousand do not care about science. How would you like to be kidnapped by a bunch of drunks and taken for a joy ride tied up. Imagine the terror; you are powerless and in a position of great danger and unpredictability. This is how the public feels about the hadron collider. Scientists are fallible and make mistakes (space shuttle).
These scientists are essentially gambling with the lives of all mankind and all life on earth. They have no right to do this!
Any discovery is only of passing interest to star trek fans and geeks. Th rest of humanity are happy having kids, getting laid and getting drunk. The majority of mankind have always been happy in the past without all this modern technology. Its time to get a life and break the tyranny of the scientific free masonry that has been controlling our lives and destroying us and the planet for so long!
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999 people out of a thousand do not care about science. How would you like to be kidnapped by a bunch of drunks and taken for a joy ride tied up. Imagine the terror; you are powerless and in a position of great danger and unpredictability. This is how the public feels about the hadron collider. Scientists are fallible and make mistakes (space shuttle).
These scientists are essentially gambling with the lives of all mankind and all life on earth. They have no right to do this!
Any discovery is only of passing interest to star trek fans and geeks. Th rest of humanity are happy having kids, getting laid and getting drunk. The majority of mankind have always been happy in the past without all this modern technology. Its time to get a life and break the tyranny of the scientific free masonry that has been controlling our lives and destroying us and the planet for so long!
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It is not that long ago that “scientists” proclaimed global warmign to be rubbish.
It is not that long ago that man was put on the stake for proclaiming that the earth was not flat.
If there are three absolutes then it are these: 1) We will all die 2) Change is inevitable 3) Rate of change always increases.
If the take the latter of these three we will see that mankind has considerably accelarted the destruction of our planet, even in our life time.
How I wish that some “terrorist” would help these scientists, who like to play God, meet God before they complete their “expirement” (spelling mistake deliberate).
I do not like to be the object of some scientists dabble with Russian Roulette on an universe destrying scale.
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It is not that long ago that “scientists” proclaimed global warmign to be rubbish.
It is not that long ago that man was put on the stake for proclaiming that the earth was not flat.
If there are three absolutes then it are these: 1) We will all die 2) Change is inevitable 3) Rate of change always increases.
If the take the latter of these three we will see that mankind has considerably accelarted the destruction of our planet, even in our life time.
How I wish that some “terrorist” would help these scientists, who like to play God, meet God before they complete their “expirement” (spelling mistake deliberate).
I do not like to be the object of some scientists dabble with Russian Roulette on an universe destrying scale.
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Come Wednesday we will either be one step closer to understanding the origins of our planet or one step closer to destroying the planet once and for all. Which will it be? Well, we will all just have to wait and see.
http://www.thebugz.com
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Come Wednesday we will either be one step closer to understanding the origins of our planet or one step closer to destroying the planet once and for all. Which will it be? Well, we will all just have to wait and see.
http://www.thebugz.com
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http://lhccountdown.info/ for latest info and countdown
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http://lhccountdown.info/ for latest info and countdown
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Look new caricature on LHC
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Look new caricature on LHC
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