Whitechapel - Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-20T22:21:28-07:00

“It is based on mathematics, but you could explain it by saying that God rather hates Higgs particles and attempts to avoid them.”

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-20T23:49:01-07:00

...or some magnets need set up properly. Stupid scientists.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T00:08:12-07:00

Yes, this seems like something that Warren would want to file away for later... I do enjoy the idea of the future purposely trying to sabotage us. We're like, "Why isn't this machine working?" and future us is like, "Quit fucking around with that goddamn machine, assholes!!!" An interesting weapon could be a Higgs boson bomb which, when set off, would generally fuck everything up in the area to prevent itself from doing what it is supposed to.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T00:44:12-07:00

Wouldn't a Higgs Boson bomb just prevent itself from going off in the first place?

I suppose it could be a useful anti-doomsday device, if you could fool-proof any of the various small failures that it could use to prevent itself from going off, so the ONLY way it would go off and create a Higgs Boson would be if a nuclear detonation occurred somewhere on Earth. Thus making a nuclear detonation physically impossible.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T02:24:06-07:00

David,

There was a story in the old Omni magazine which was remarkably close to that.

A new supercollider is built and keeps failing in more spectacular and bizarre way each time its creators try to turn it on.

Eventually they redo the math and realise that:

a. turning it on would recreate conditions immediately after the big bang- including cosmological inflation which would destroy the Earth; and

b. the Many Worlds hypothesis has just been proven - because the only universe they can ever observe is one of the ones where somehow the collider malfunctioned

So they tell the US and Russian governments *since the Russians are about to commission their own version.

Both sides decide to hook their machines up to an Atom-phone style doomsday system. If either system detects multiple nuclear explosions it activates.

This makes nuclear war impossible - at least in any universe with humans around to observe it.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T02:55:04-07:00

::throws out story idea as it has already been done better::

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T03:25:41-07:00

Or, according to LHC Physicist Steve Nahn, perhaps it is not

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T04:02:58-07:00

@sneak046

I hope you don't mind me extracting the salient point from that article you linked:

"The difference here is that these previous "crazy" ideas [quantum mechanics, special relativity] gave consequences that were clearly testable and attestable to the new nature of the theory, in an objective manner, and involved the behavior of inanimate objects (i.e., not humans). However, in this case, the consequences seem quite contrived — specifically, setting up the theory such that the Higgs particle thwarts its own discovery at the LHC seems to be creating the means to fit the desired end."

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T04:11:46-07:00

@Paul - no not all. Thanks. (the bottomless pit that are my RSS feeds turned up something pertinent for a change..)

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T06:23:57-07:00

I'm pretty sure that Warren posted this on Warren Ellis dot com. Which is how this lunacy came to my attention.

Personally, I'm still waiting for this thing to get fired back up, just to see if we do, in fact, blink out of existence. I don't think we will, but hey, who knows.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T06:46:53-07:00

No one reads his website.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T08:14:07-07:00

Ah, mighty fine point. I keep forgetting.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T08:29:23-07:00

This might have been true if Grant Morrison wrote our reality.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T15:26:36-07:00

Kosmopolit - any idea if that story is still findable somewhere?

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-21T19:53:14-07:00

Steady - can't remember who wrote it or the title unfortunately.

I might try googling for it.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-22T05:37:36-07:00

@ Verus

How certain are we that Grant Morrison isn't writing our reality?

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-22T05:45:19-07:00

At least Bendis isn't writing reality.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-22T06:08:52-07:00

@johnjones

If Morrison wrote our reality it would be way cooler.

Unless we're in one of those alternative universe thingies where things have gone wrong...

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-22T06:16:33-07:00

Unless we're in one of those alternative universe thingies where things have gone wrong...

That would explain a lot.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-22T06:37:13-07:00

What If... George Bush Won The Presidency In 2000?

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-22T07:06:15-07:00

I actually think we've been in the wrong universe since 1848 at the minimum and probably since the Putney Debates.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-26T12:43:17-07:00

For anyone who wants a sceptical and informed opinion on this subject, here are two astronomers chatting about it on a critical thinking podcast:

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-26T17:59:56-07:00

CERNINATOR!

:D

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-10-26T18:32:14-07:00

Yeah, of course, it's sabotaging itself. Because the standard model CAN'T be wrong! duh.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-11-25T17:03:05-08:00

CERNINATOR!

.....Or how about:

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-11-25T17:42:58-08:00

So far its been operating for several days and no ka-blooie and no freak shutdown.

But it's operating at minimum power currently.

Let's see what happens if it cranks up.

Either there's another freak accident to stop it; the scientists get the answers they want or they find something totally bizarre and unexpected.

Any of those results is pretty damn cool.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-11-27T08:19:58-08:00

The real problem with this theory is that the data has never required its formulation; The ways that the LHC broke down were never inexplicable or even particularly surprising. The LHC is, literally, the most complex thing ever made by humans. Complex things tend to go a bit wrong. Extremely complex things tend to go...

One factor here may be that the LHC has come to the attention of a lot of people who aren't familiar with how big science tends to happen. As far as I can see most physicists expect it to take a fairly long time before we start getting any interesting data, but that's not a paradigm that goes over well in the media or with people used to getting their information from it. A good headline is: COLLIDER REMAKES PHYSICS! not LHC SWITCHED ON! (2008) followed by TENTATIVE RESULTS SUGGEST ADJUSTMENTS NEEDED TO EINSTEIN'S EQUATIONS UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS (2015).

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-11-27T12:04:18-08:00

I wouldn't worry about the LHC. CERN has people prepared for all contingencies.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2009-11-29T05:24:46-08:00

hehehee....that image caught me off gaurd and made me giggle.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-03-31T07:03:06-07:00

As of Tuesday, the Large Hadron Collider becomes fully operational...

Aside from a historic crash of two proton beams, which produced three times more energy than researchers had created before, nothing "apocolyptic" has happened.

Yet.

: )

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-03-31T10:32:35-07:00

@Lactamaeon

There's still hope!

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-03-31T11:50:48-07:00

Uh oh.

LHC@home's website is down. The site's been up for a while with little to no work in preparation for the data output from the collider. Now I can't get to the site or the BOINC servers at all. Maybe all their webmasters are drunk.

Or maybe it's the Hiiiiggs Boooooosoooooooon WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*throws sheet over head*
*chases cat*

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-03-31T12:04:42-07:00

It's still up and running: linky.

That site is amusing because you can also pick other colliders to monitor.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-03-31T17:21:48-07:00

and this is how you explain it all....

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-03-31T17:59:40-07:00

I'd put Grant Morrison in charge of my reality. It'd be more fun.

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-04-01T05:22:18-07:00

Large Hadron Collider could be sabotaging itself from the future

2010-04-04T22:32:30-07:00

I'd put Grant Morrison in charge of my reality. It'd be more fun.

Hell yeah!!!