What Will the Large Hadron Collider Uncover Next?

[humanino]

Their idea is to smash protons towards one another at the speed of light

Other non-scientific statements :

the biggest science experiment in history

What do you mean by "big" ? We already asked you that. It seems useless for us to try to point you towards what can be improved. I conclude that your goal is not to be scientifically accurate.

its resulting data has the potential to explain why we and the Universe exist.

Certainly nothing to say about that. You confuse science and religion. We already told you that.

trying to mimic what happened in the milliseconds after The Big Bang

If your goal is to impress the public by using approximate, or even wrong, statements, you missed an occasion here : the TeV scale is earlier than the millisecond epoch.

 

[gendou2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider"

An American tragedy, that. I would like to tour the ruins of the tunnel, but alas security is an obstacle.

 

[fyziks]

Other non-scientific statements :
If your goal is to impress the public by using approximate, or even wrong, statements, you missed an occasion here : the TeV scale is earlier than the millisecond epoch.

Forgive the interruption, but Humanino, I think you're the one trying to impress. As a theorist, I can say the History Channel did a valiant job at explaining some substantial ideas to a substantial audience.

It's clear in the first 10 minutes of the show that the LHC is looking well beyond the millisecond epoch, thus separating it from the "mere" tevatron results we see everyday...

Though I ache to see more in-depth television about singular theories, I applaud mfgang and his/her team for venturing into the PHYSICS of the LHC, rather than pondering our universal demise.

(My family was quite taken with the sidebars about Newton, Einstein, Rutherford and Galileo - I think it helped them put it all in perspective, though they still wonder what I do with my chalkboard all day.)

Big science for the masses. Excellent work, mfgang. As Kaplan said, "The LHC is the next big bang in physics. I do agree!

 

[humanino]

Forgive the interruption, but Humanino, I think you're the one trying to impress.

Do you really think I care about impressing people here after 1.5k posts ? That is a silly idea. I am an experimentalist and I am neither afraid of my reputation when I ask question nor when I happen to make wrong answers. I actually benefit from being corrected here on PF. There are plenty of good sources to learn about LHC. The mere purpose of this entire discussion is advertising.

 

[fyziks]

Spoken like a true physicist! Absolutely no ill-will intended, Humanino. Quite the contrary. I was only applauding the attempt to make what we do approachable by the masses - and noting that the science was, in fact, quite clear regarding the time and temperature explored in LHC's early universe within the show. mfgang's syntax may have been off in the thread, but the show was actually correct. (LOVE Fabbiola Gianotti at ATLAS, by the way - now there's an experimentalist even I could like)
Not much film/tv is out there, other than a few touchy feely quantum and/or string ideas, to excite brains. So, I was/am inspired. I hope others can look past the elementary nature of it to see how, even if it's only for a moment, something like Super Symmetry would have never been explored at such a mass level.
Impressive.
(though we're agreed - neither of us are trying to impress!)

 

[Phrak]

fyziks-mfgang.
physics is hard. people are easy.

 

[cristo]

Forgive the interruption, but Humanino, I think you're the one trying to impress. As a theorist, I can say the History Channel did a valiant job at explaining some substantial ideas to a substantial audience.

As humanino has said, here we were discussing the way this show has been advertised. If you really are a physicist (and, to be honest, I have my suspicions as to who you are, since you have only made two posts here ) then surely you should cringe when the media say things like "the LHC are colliding protons traveling at the speed of light."

 

[fyziks]

Cringe? Of course. The “media” manages to reduce everything, EVERYTHING of import to a “smashing protons” sound byte. It’s an unfortunate “given.” Marketing personnel are rarely scientists.

Which is, I suppose, why I responded the way I did originally. The History Channel movie itself rose as far above all that as one could hope for in mainstream television. Unfortunately it was kind of an hors dourves tray, because it never got especially deep, but it was accurate.

Admittedly, I leapt blind into the forum without minding the back pages. I hadn’t witnessed the promotional jargon, nor, it seems the thrust of the thread. (If you had any doubt I was a theorist, that should prove it! ) I was just moved to see who may be discussing this rare effort to create a decent film on the LHC.

As physicists we must be critical and exact in our field, but we are often too critical of peripheral arenas that may actually help us. The more excitement, the more funding, the more participation, the more science in schools. Etc.

And finally, my years dedicated to the field have not made me thread-savvy, so I shan’t attempt to establish my scientific legitimacy here. Instead, perhaps we will collaborate in person one day.

I’ll be the hopeful one.

 

[ZapperZ]

Well, I'm an experimentalist, and I actually thought the program was well-made. It certainly doesn't have the "hype" that most other popular science shows would have, or at least not to the same degree. And everyone here who knows me knows that I'm usually very critical of pop-science media. One could fault a few minor inaccuracies here and there, but those are really minor quibbles.

Zz.

 

[cristo]

Note that I wasn't commenting on the show (since I don't have US channels), but I was merely remarking that the advertisement linked to on the previous page was inaccurate. It is, however, quite possible that the blurb was written by someone that had nothing to do with the making of the programme.