View Full Version : Time travellers from the future 'could be here in weeks'
Dukefrukem
08-27-2008, 07:29 PM
Time travellers from the future 'could be here in weeks' - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/06/scitime106.xml)
The first time travellers from the future could materialise on Earth within a few weeks.
Physicists around the world are excitedly awaiting the start up of the £4.65 billion Large Hadron Collider, LHC - the most powerful atom-smasher ever built - which is supposed to shed new light on the particles and forces at work in the cosmos and reproduce conditions that date to near the Big Bang of creation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/graphics/2008/02/06/scitime106.jpg
1.21 gigawatts of electricity: Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd in the De Lorean time machine from Back to the Future
Prof Irina Aref'eva and Dr Igor Volovich, mathematical physicists at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow believe that the vast experiment at CERN, the European particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, may turn out to be the world's first time machine, reports New Scientist.
The debut in early summer could provide a landmark because travelling into the past is only possible - if it is possible at all - as far back as the point of creation of the first time machine.
That means 2008 could become "Year Zero" for temporal travel, they argue.
Time travel was born when Albert Einstein's colleague, Kurt Gödel, used Einstein's theory of relativity to show that travel into the past was possible.
Ever since he unveiled this idea in 1949, eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes: a time traveller could go back to kill his grandfather so that he is never born in the first place.
But, sixty years later, there is still no fundamental reason why time travellers cannot put historians out of business.
But the Russians argue that when the energies of the LHC are concentrated into a subatomic particle - a trillionth the size of a mosquito - they can do strange things to the fabric of the universe, which is a blend of space and time that scientists called spacetime.
While Earth's gravity produces gentle distortions in spacetime the LHC energy can distort time so much that it loops back on itself. These loops are known to physicists as "closed timelike curves" and they ought, at least in theory, to allow us to revisit some past moment.
The scheme chimes with one laid out in 1988, when Prof Kip Thorne and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, showed that wormholes, or tunnels through spacetime, would allow time travel, a scheme popularised by Carl Sagan in his novel - made into a film - Contact.
Prof Aref'eva and Dr Volovich believe the LHC could create wormholes and so allow a form of time travel. "We realised that closed timelike curves and wormholes could also be a result of collisions of particles," Prof Aref'eva says.
There are still plenty of obstacles for the likes of Dr Who, however. Not least of them is the fact that these are mini wormholes, so only subatomic particles are small enough to travel through them.
They tell The Daily Telegraph that whether subatomic time travel in the LHC would open the doors for human scale time travellers "is a deep and interesting question" but stress that "these problems, and many others as well, require further investigations."
Probably the best we can hope for is that the LHC may show a signature of the wormholes' existence, Dr Volovich says. If some of the energy from collisions in the LHC goes missing, it could be because the collisions created particles that have travelled into a wormhole and through time.
One sticking point until now for wormhole concepts is finding an exotic kind of material capable of keeping the maw of the wormhole open for time travel.
Dark energy - a mysterious antigravity force that is thought to pervade the universe - could, they say, be just what is needed to keep the entrance to a wormhole open, at least according to one family of ideas about its nature, where it is called phantom energy.
If a blend of colliding particles and phantom energy does create a wormhole in Geneva this year, an advanced civilisation could find it in their history books, pinpoint the moment, and take advantage of their technology to pay us a visit.
"The observational evidence still allows for phantom energy," says Robert Caldwell, a physicist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. "As for Aref'eva and Volovich's speculation that the LHC will produce the stuff of time machines - ugh!"
A leading scientist who believes that time travel may be possible, Prof David Deutsch of Oxford University, comments: "It's speculative in the extreme, but not cranky. For various reasons I don't think the mechanism they propose would work (i.e. provide a pathway for messages from the future) even if their speculations are true."
Dr Brian Cox of the University of Manchester adds: "The energies of billions of cosmic rays that have been hitting the Earth's atmosphere for five billion years far exceed those we will create at the LHC, so by this logic time travellers should be here already. If these wormholes appear I will personally eat the hat I was given for my first birthday before I received it."
pretty cool?
Watashi
08-27-2008, 07:35 PM
I hope they bring back a print of The Dark Knight 6.
D_Davis
08-27-2008, 07:48 PM
That's awesome.
Here is Rudy Rucker talking about the large Hadron Collider (LHC):
http://trashotron.com/agony/audio/2008/2008-news/041008-rudy_rucker.mp3
Fun stuff, especially if they create a black hole they can't contain!
POOF - bye bye planet Earth!
:)
bac0n
08-27-2008, 08:16 PM
This bodes poorly for John McCain. If he wins and then goes on to trigger a nuclear apocalypse by bomb bomb bombing Iran, it stands to reason that once the human race recovers and subsequently discovers warp travel, which of course means we contact the Vulcans who are like really cool and shit, and then we discover the whole time travel thing and some Romulan asshole comes back in time to fuck everything up by planting some child porn on McCain's computer sometime in late november of this year causing McCain's popularity to plummet and shooing Obama into the whitehouse. Take that, Republicans!
MadMan
08-28-2008, 12:18 AM
There's only one man who can police the future. He is.....THE TIMECOP.
http://www.taekwondo-beuk.nl/jcvdamme1/Jean%20Claude%20van%20Damme/slides/timecop.jpg
That or this bastard will come back to kill us all:
http://www.het.brown.edu/~nastase/terminator.jpg
megladon8
08-28-2008, 12:22 AM
Yeah, how much you wanna bet in a few weeks' time we'll find out that Geneva was covered in a giant mist, and everyone there was found coccooned and being fed on by giant acidic spiders?
Bad idea, humanity...bad idea...
transmogrifier
08-28-2008, 04:21 AM
I've always wondered - wouldn't time travel violate the idea that matter can never be created or destroyed in a closed system? Because going back in time would introduce new matter somewhere where it previously didn't exist.
Dead & Messed Up
08-28-2008, 05:08 AM
Yeah, how much you wanna bet in a few weeks' time we'll find out that Geneva was covered in a giant mist, and everyone there was found coccooned and being fed on by giant acidic spiders?
Bad idea, humanity...bad idea...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v179/deadandmessedup/The_Mist_Six-legged_Monster.jpg
...we had a good run.
number8
08-28-2008, 08:46 AM
"If these wormholes appear I will personally eat the hat I was given for my first birthday before I received it."
Everyone named Brian Cox is officially fucking awesome, apparently.
Wryan
08-28-2008, 01:29 PM
In all seriousness, don't do this. Don't invent time travel...ever. We'll destroy ourselves. It will be possible someday, unless we suffocate ourselves first. But don't do it.
bac0n
08-28-2008, 02:22 PM
If anything goes wrong and extradimensional arachnoids cocoon us all, you guys can rout all your complaints through me. My father-in-law is one of the scientists working on the thing. Let me just say this... if you knew my father-in-law as well as I do, well... you wouldn't be making any definite plans after September. :twisted:
MadMan
08-28-2008, 06:10 PM
In all seriousness, don't do this. Don't invent time travel...ever. We'll destroy ourselves. It will be possible someday, unless we suffocate ourselves first. But don't do it.Pretty much. Look at what has happened as a result of the invention of the atomic bomb. Sure WW II was ended much quicker (that's actually up for debate), but with it came the death of thousands of people, and nations now gathering and building them for an eventual WW III. We got MAD out of all that, and I don't really want to know what time travel would actually bring.
Oh and maybe this October I will finally get around to seeing The Mist.
Pretty much. Look at what has happened as a result of the invention of the atomic bomb. Sure WW II was ended much quicker (that's actually up for debate), but with it came the death of thousands of people, and nations now gathering and building them for an eventual WW III. We got MAD out of all that, and I don't really want to know what time travel would actually bring.
Oh and maybe this October I will finally get around to seeing The Mist.
Then we'd better dis-invent the automobile, too.
Dead & Messed Up
08-28-2008, 06:34 PM
http://www.exitmundi.nl/black-hole-lab2.gif
We tampered in God's domain.
Wryan
08-28-2008, 08:29 PM
Then we'd better dis-invent the automobile, too.
Yes, I know. It's easy for me to whine at the vulgarities and savageries wrought by technology, and it's just as easy for me to grin and roll my eyes at such whining. But we're talking about time-travel here. I don't think, for a moment, that's it's "just another piece of technology" and that it will bring all the "regular" goods and bads that other technologies have wrought. We're talking about fundamentally fucking with time and, thus, history. Changing one tiny thing will alter others. Et cetera with all the cliches you can think of and that we've seen or been presented with.
The funny thing is: I certainly believe that time travel will be made possible, even trivial and cheap (hello Wal-Mart plastic time-travel kit, for ages 6-9). If I believe that, why haven't all of the stygian, apocalyptic, fabric-tearing events that I fear already happened? Surely, if it takes 500 years for us to reach that level of technology, then 500-years-into-the-future-fucktards would have already come back and screwed some things up rather noticeably, I would say. So why haven't we seen anything so prominent yet? Is it because we never master the technology?
Or is it because humanity is extinguished before we can reach that point?
IMO, its the latter. Now where's my Mayan calendar...
Teh Sausage
08-28-2008, 08:38 PM
Time travel will happen, and so we're living in an alternate reality all ready. I assume.
Milky Joe
08-28-2008, 08:42 PM
Some would say that the invention of time-travel, that is to say, our liberation from the constraints of linear time, is a necessary step in the evolution of our species if we (the baby) and the Earth (the mother) are to survive the 'birthing process' of humanity into the stars. Whatever the case, there's no going backward at this point.
So why haven't we seen anything so prominent yet? Is it because we never master the technology?
Maybe it's just because we haven't invented the technology yet. As in, in order for messages (or people, or whatever) to be sent through time you have to have the capability to receive as well as send. So when they flip the switch, we'll suddenly get the entirety of the future beamed into us and time as we know it will basically dissolve. I'm looking forward to it!
Wryan
08-28-2008, 09:13 PM
Maybe it's just because we haven't invented the technology yet. As in, in order for messages (or people, or whatever) to be sent through time you have to have the capability to receive as well as send. So when they flip the switch, we'll suddenly get the entirety of the future beamed into us and time as we know it will basically dissolve. I'm looking forward to it!
Doesn't that assume that we never progress past the necessity of having the machinery/capability to receive those signals as a requirement for time travel at all?
Milky Joe
08-28-2008, 09:30 PM
Doesn't that assume that we never progress past the necessity of having the machinery/capability to receive those signals as a requirement for time travel at all?
Yeah. Maybe that's just the way it works. Maybe you just need SOME kind of portal/gateway/whatever open on your end before you can receive any kind of time-traversing signal at all, then once it's open that's all she wrote. Kind of like port-forwarding on a router. We need to open up port ∞ before anybody can receive anything on any tangible scale.
Wryan
08-28-2008, 10:09 PM
Yeah. Maybe that's just the way it works. Maybe you just need SOME kind of portal/gateway/whatever open on your end before you can receive any kind of time-traversing signal at all, then once it's open that's all she wrote. Kind of like port-forwarding on a router. We need to open up port ∞ before anybody can receive anything on any tangible scale.
Quite possibly......or not. Who knows. I think it's all very frightening. I'm cynical.
Melville
08-28-2008, 10:52 PM
It's kind of irritating how the media presents all these wild hypotheses as if they were almost certain. Even the idea of black holes being created at the LHC is extremely speculative. It's based on ideas such as large extra dimensions, which have no experimental (and little theoretical) evidence supporting them. The wormholes allowing closed timelike curves are even more far fetched, since they rely on arbitrary estimates of the magnitude of a completely imaginary type of "exotic" matter with negative energy.
I've always wondered - wouldn't time travel violate the idea that matter can never be created or destroyed in a closed system? Because going back in time would introduce new matter somewhere where it previously didn't exist.
In this case the entire universe (or at least some large, approximately asymptotically flat region of it) would be the system, so I don't see a problem there.
soitgoes...
08-28-2008, 10:57 PM
If time travel were ever to be "invented," wouldn't that mean that time travellers would already possibly be here. I always enjoyed discussing the theory of time travel in my philosophy classes. The whole idea and discussion of it is a mindfuck.
number8
08-28-2008, 11:18 PM
If time travel were ever to be "invented," wouldn't that mean that time travellers would already possibly be here. I always enjoyed discussing the theory of time travel in my philosophy classes. The whole idea and discussion of it is a mindfuck.
That's what I think, as well. It doesn't matter what the discovery is or when. It's either possible or not possible. Even if the discovery of the possibility doesn't come about until 100 years from now, just that margin of possibility should theoretically allow them to exist in the present. Unless there is a limit as to how far back the time travel allows, which I think is what is being implied by this whole wormhole shit.
megladon8
08-28-2008, 11:23 PM
Doesn't it make sense to say that you can only travel back as far as time machines have existed?
You need a receiver on the other end, you can't just go wherever and whenever you please.
soitgoes...
08-28-2008, 11:28 PM
That's what I think, as well. It doesn't matter what the discovery is or when. It's either possible or not possible. Even if the discovery of the possibility doesn't come about until 100 years from now, just that margin of possibility should theoretically allow them to exist in the present. Unless there is a limit as to how far back the time travel allows, which I think is what is being implied by this whole wormhole shit.
Yeah. If time travel were to ever be possible, then it is and has already happened. Away with linear time. If John Doe were to travel from the year 2200 to 1821, then John Doe has always been in the year 1821. The events that John Doe "changed" in 1821 have always been "changed," thus there can be no going back into time to change the future. Because those that have gone back in time have done so already. At least that's what I remember taking away from those classes.
Milky Joe
08-28-2008, 11:29 PM
That's what I think, as well. It doesn't matter what the discovery is or when. It's either possible or not possible. Even if the discovery of the possibility doesn't come about until 100 years from now, just that margin of possibility should theoretically allow them to exist in the present. Unless there is a limit as to how far back the time travel allows, which I think is what is being implied by this whole wormhole shit.
Or unless there is a limit inherent in the technology whereby it must exist/have been invented for it to be possible to interact with that time period. So once that point is reached in time where we flip the switch or whatever, we immediately begin receiving information from the future. Like say we figured out a way to send an e-mail back in time to the year 1895. How are they going to read it?
Doesn't it make sense to say that you can only travel back as far as time machines have existed?
You need a receiver on the other end, you can't just go wherever and whenever you please.
Right. This is basically Terence McKenna's argument, which I've been regurgitating.
soitgoes...
08-28-2008, 11:34 PM
Doesn't it make sense to say that you can only travel back as far as time machines have existed?
You need a receiver on the other end, you can't just go wherever and whenever you please.
Well, I think that depends on what is needed to necessitate time travel. I don't pretend to know what machinery is needed. What if you didn't need a receiver on the other end? You just rip open a hole in time from the future and can go whenever you want with your little hand held gizmo that Sony manufactures.
transmogrifier
08-29-2008, 12:24 AM
Well, I think that depends on what is needed to necessitate time travel. I don't pretend to know what machinery is needed. What if you didn't need a receiver on the other end? You just rip open a hole in time from the future and can go whenever you want with your little hand held gizmo that Sony manufactures.
I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that we DO need to have a receiver at both ends for time travel to work, if only due to the conspicuous lack of time travellers around us.
transmogrifier
08-29-2008, 12:29 AM
In this case the entire universe (or at least some large, approximately asymptotically flat region of it) would be the system, so I don't see a problem there.
But it's a closed system, so how can we get around the fact that every time we time travel, the atoms going back in time (in the form of the ship and the humans onboard etc) are also present in our target time? We are essentially duplicating matter.
The only way around that is if what we percieve as time actually operates like a series of frames in a filmstrip, with matter duplicating itself at infinitessimal intervals as time moves forward. That way, when we go back in time, we are simply moving matter from one frame to another, within the closed system of the filmstrip. Not sure if that makes any sense, but anyway......
Melville
08-29-2008, 01:02 AM
But it's a closed system, so how can we get around the fact that every time we time travel, the atoms going back in time (in the form of the ship and the humans onboard etc) are also present in our target time? We are essentially duplicating matter.
Any matter that is at a given point in spacetime must "always" have been there. If we travel back in time to meet ourselves, then we already met ourselves the first time.
MadMan
08-29-2008, 01:57 AM
Then we'd better dis-invent the automobile, too.Yes, because the automobile is comparable to the atom bomb. Good freakin' grief man I thought you were sensible enough not to use logical fallacies (in this case poor analogy).
Yes, because the automobile is comparable to the atom bomb. Good freakin' grief man I thought you were sensible enough not to use logical fallacies (in this case poor analogy).
How many people died because of the fire bombing of Tokyo?
How many people would've died because of a mainland invasion of Japan?
How many lives have been saved because of nuclear physics?
Scar's Lawyers: Time travel is BAD.
MadMan
08-29-2008, 02:56 AM
How many people died because of the fire bombing of Tokyo?True, but that was necessary to break the Japanese. We didn't have much of a choice there.
How many people would've died because of a mainland invasion of Japan?Now I actually favored the use of the atomic bomb on Japan. Was it evil? Yes. Was it necessary? That in lies the debate, and I recognize both sides as having valid points. Some actually think that the bomb was dropped not to finish off Japan, but rather to impress our budding new enemy at the time, the USSR. I think there's some truth to that belief.
soitgoes...
08-29-2008, 08:29 AM
I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that we DO need to have a receiver at both ends for time travel to work, if only due to the conspicuous lack of time travellers around us.Or perhaps time travel is not possible?!? That could account for the lack of time travellers. Or time travel is only possible in small leaps. Or time travel isn't "discovered" until a point in human history where we are able to travel with discretion. Or we also discovered the ability to cloak ourselves. I'm pretty sure when talking about the mechanics of time travel we have no idea what is possible. It's best to stay to theory only, which is what the only thing I've been trying to say.
transmogrifier
08-29-2008, 09:30 AM
Or perhaps time travel is not possible?!? That could account for the lack of time travellers. Or time travel is only possible in small leaps. Or time travel isn't "discovered" until a point in human history where we are able to travel with discretion. Or we also discovered the ability to cloak ourselves. I'm pretty sure when talking about the mechanics of time travel we have no idea what is possible. It's best to stay to theory only, which is what the only thing I've been trying to say.
Sorry, my comment was supposed to be under the caveat of "IF (big if) time travel is possible......"
Dukefrukem
08-29-2008, 07:23 PM
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v179/deadandmessedup/The_Mist_Six-legged_Monster.jpg
...we had a good run.
I'd be pissed if I didn't already see this movie.
Dead & Messed Up
08-29-2008, 07:40 PM
I'd be pissed if I didn't already see this movie.
Figure it's a spoiler?
D_Davis
08-29-2008, 07:48 PM
I'd be pissed if I didn't already see this movie.
How would you know what movie it was from?
Dukefrukem
08-29-2008, 09:04 PM
How would you know what movie it was from?
Judging by the misty mist in the pic and the trailer I saw... it's not too difficult.
Sycophant
08-29-2008, 10:10 PM
Judging by the misty mist in the pic and the trailer I saw... it's not too difficult.
Until you said that, I couldn't place it actually. And I saw the damned movie about three months ago.
D_Davis
08-29-2008, 11:02 PM
If I saw that picture, and had not seen the film, I would think it was from Cloverfield. That movie is billed as a monster movie, where as the Mist was not.
I'd be pissed if I didn't already see this movie.
There were big creature thingies in the trailer.
Dukefrukem
08-31-2008, 11:56 PM
There were big creature thingies in the trailer.
Well i meant the way the trailer was shot. Oh well.
MadMan
09-02-2008, 06:49 PM
I have not seen The Mist, but I don't think that picture is a spoiler. Besides its my fault for not having seen the damn movie back when it came out. Not that I want people to spoiler it for me, but still its the type of movie that's best to see when its released so you don't have to worry about hearing how it ends on accident or on purpose.
D_Davis
09-02-2008, 06:53 PM
Anyone seen the episode of Rob & Big with the time machine?
Hilarious.
Derek
09-02-2008, 06:53 PM
I have not seen The Mist, but I don't think that picture is a spoiler. Besides its my fault for not having seen the damn movie back when it came out. Not that I want people to spoiler it for me, but still its the type of movie that's best to see when its released so you don't have to worry about hearing how it ends on accident or on purpose.
And you probably still wouldn't know it's from The Mist had Duke not brought it up. The irony. :)
Anyone seen the episode of Rob & Big with the time machine?
Hilarious.
I missed that one. But my younger brother told me about it. Something about some crazy fucker in a basement?
MadMan
09-02-2008, 06:55 PM
And you probably still wouldn't know it's from The Mist had Duke not brought it up. The irony. :)Nah, I think someone else in this thread noted that it was from that film. Plus if you click on the picture's properties it does actually say its from the film.
D_Davis
09-02-2008, 06:59 PM
I missed that one. But my younger brother told me about it. Something about some crazy fucker in a basement?
Yeah. Rob kept calling the dude who sold him the device to get some help, but the dude insisted that Rob was an alien from another dimension and he couldn't help him because the Government was after him. So then Rob and Big went to Canada to meet some other dude who had videos on Youtube explaining the device. He lived in the basement of an apartment complex on Montreal or something.
Dukefrukem
09-02-2008, 09:02 PM
I have not seen The Mist, but I don't think that picture is a spoiler. Besides its my fault for not having seen the damn movie back when it came out. Not that I want people to spoiler it for me, but still its the type of movie that's best to see when its released so you don't have to worry about hearing how it ends on accident or on purpose.
I wanted to see it badly when i saw the trailer, and then read a review about it in Rue Morgue and they gave away some of the monsters in the review... i was pissed.
Ezee E
09-03-2008, 05:20 AM
I'll just watch Primer again.
megladon8
09-09-2008, 03:51 AM
This could cause miniature black holes which will tear the fabric of the Earth apart. (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080907/science/science_big_bang_machine)
...why do we have to do this, again?
Even if the chances of something that catastrophic happening are miniscule, they are still acknowledging that there is a chance.
What gives these scientists the right to play Russian Roulette, with the gun pointed towards everyone's heads?
Milky Joe
09-09-2008, 04:33 AM
This could cause miniature black holes which will tear the fabric of the Earth apart. (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080907/science/science_big_bang_machine)
...why do we have to do this, again?
Even if the chances of something that catastrophic happening are miniscule, they are still acknowledging that there is a chance.
What gives these scientists the right to play Russian Roulette, with the gun pointed towards everyone's heads?
I think the chances of that happening are something like 1 in a trillion. Besides, I think the chances are much better that this thing could fundamentally alter our perception of the universe. This is evolution we're talking about here, of a sort. You want to stop it because there is a miniscule chance we might get sucked into a black hole? Please.
Also, this guy. (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/brian_cox_on_cern_s_supercolli der.html)
Ezee E
09-09-2008, 05:34 AM
Plus, we won't even feel it.
transmogrifier
09-09-2008, 10:16 AM
Plus, we won't even feel it.
Yeah, it won't hurt a bit.
I guess this is why no aliens ever visit us. They reach a certain point of evolution, and then obliterate themselves. We've made it!
This could cause miniature black holes which will tear the fabric of the Earth apart. (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080907/science/science_big_bang_machine)
This reminded of a song:
Scientists Rappin' about CERN's Large Hadron Collider! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM&eurl=http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/08/cern-rap-video-about-the-large-hadron-collider-creates-a-black-h/)
MadMan
09-09-2008, 03:33 PM
This could cause miniature black holes which will tear the fabric of the Earth apart. (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080907/science/science_big_bang_machine)
...why do we have to do this, again?
Even if the chances of something that catastrophic happening are miniscule, they are still acknowledging that there is a chance.
What gives these scientists the right to play Russian Roulette, with the gun pointed towards everyone's heads?I'm not worried in the slightest. But I would like to finish college before the world ends. :P
Ezee E
09-09-2008, 05:23 PM
I'm not worried in the slightest. But I would like to finish college before the world ends. :P
2012.
megladon8
09-10-2008, 12:10 AM
I was on the radio this morning talking about this.
Both the DJ's and the guest agreed with me on the "0.0001% chance of destroying the earth is 0.0001% too high."
I was on the radio this morning talking about this.
Both the DJ's and the guest agreed with me on the "0.0001% chance of destroying the earth is 0.0001% too high."
Let's put it this way: if McCain wins, have at it.
megladon8
09-10-2008, 12:17 AM
Let's put it this way: if McCain wins, have at it.
I don't get it.
I don't really follow American politics.
Sycophant
09-10-2008, 12:24 AM
I don't get it.
I don't really follow American politics.
I suspect iosos is implying that if McCain gets elected, the world is fucked anyway, so have at. FYI, McCain is this dude who is running for President. Obama's this other dude who's doing the same thing.
I'm surprised you don't follow American politics closer. I've done your country the courtesy of learning that it's North, full of snow year-round, and you're all gay commies that think Monopoly money is for reals.
soitgoes...
09-10-2008, 12:29 AM
I suspect iosos is implying that if McCain gets elected, the world is fucked anyway, so have at. FYI, McCain is this dude who is running for President. Obama's this other dude who's doing the same thing.
I'm surprised you don't follow American politics closer. I've done your country the courtesy of learning that it's North, full of snow year-round, and you're all gay commies that think Monopoly money is for reals.Also full of French-speaking people, as well as those who are not.
MadMan
09-10-2008, 12:37 AM
2012.Hopefully I shall be done by then, heh.
Oh and of course Canada has legalized weed. Or its not as criminalized as down here. Which is awesome. And better health care. Lucky bastards.
Sycophant
09-10-2008, 12:39 AM
Great Britain!
Melville
09-10-2008, 12:50 AM
I was on the radio this morning talking about this.
Both the DJ's and the guest agreed with me on the "0.0001% chance of destroying the earth is 0.0001% too high."
Let me repeat myself: the notion that black holes will be created at the LHC is based on a theory of large extra dimensions that only gravity can propagate through, and on a pretty much arbitrary estimate of the size of the extra dimensions. (Maybe other theories have the same prediction, but that's the only one I've heard.) This theory has no empirical evidence supporting it. Wild theories like it pop up all the time, and there is no evidence that any of them are right or even meaningful. However, if you choose to believe these theories, then they also tell you that the black holes created at the LHC will evaporate almost instantaneously. Why do you trust the idea that the black holes will be created, but not the idea that they will decay much faster than they could possibly accumulate any significant mass? If verified physical theories predict that no black holes will be produced, and any theory that predicts they will be produced also predicts that they will evaporate almost instantly, what possible reason could you have for thinking that a black hole will be created and swallow the planet?
MadMan
09-10-2008, 02:56 AM
Great Britain!Police state! God Save the Queen, Sex Pistols style! ;)
Lasse
09-10-2008, 07:55 AM
I was on the radio this morning talking about this.
Both the DJ's and the guest agreed with me on the "0.0001% chance of destroying the earth is 0.0001% too high."
I heard that the odds are like 10^-50. or something like a 0.0000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000001% risk.
soitgoes...
09-10-2008, 09:40 AM
Good news! (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_on_re_eu/big_bang) We're all still alive.
Gordon Freeman spotted at CERN.
http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/5423/gordonfreemanspottedatcjb0.jpg
Let me repeat myself: the notion that black holes will be created at the LHC is based on a theory of large extra dimensions that only gravity can propagate through, and on a pretty much arbitrary estimate of the size of the extra dimensions. (Maybe other theories have the same prediction, but that's the only one I've heard.) This theory has no empirical evidence supporting it. Wild theories like it pop up all the time, and there is no evidence that any of them are right or even meaningful. However, if you choose to believe these theories, then they also tell you that the black holes created at the LHC will evaporate almost instantaneously. Why do you trust the idea that the black holes will be created, but not the idea that they will decay much faster than they could possibly accumulate any significant mass? If verified physical theories predict that no black holes will be produced, and any theory that predicts they will be produced also predicts that they will evaporate almost instantly, what possible reason could you have for thinking that a black hole will be created and swallow the planet?
Thank you. Don't know if people will listen, but thank you.
There was a theory that during the first atomic bomb test, the whole world would blow up.
Scar The 45th
09-10-2008, 02:21 PM
Greetings people of the beginning of the 21st century. My name is Bingbat Zglorb. I can trace my lineage back to the human race and from there through 45 generations to the human you refer to as Scar. I am 22 years old by the 2122 Sol Standard and have just attained my time travel license, and, as has become customary with those of my particular age group and station, we want to go as far back as we can, to year 0, day 0.
(We reset the numbering system for dates in 2075 after Drake McCracken mathematically disproved the existence of God, therefor rendering the BC/AD standard irrelevant. Ironically, Drake is the grandson of the person you know as Barty.)
I am here because I want to see what my infamous great great great (ad nauseum) grandfather was up to before the tragic events of Year 4, Day 175, and possibly to try and prevent the happenings of that awful day and prevent the interstellar war that would follow, which would almost completely wipe out both the human race, and the headstrong but otherwise peaceful space botanists of Rigel Theta.
So, Scar. I implore you. When you are sitting around watching The Vikings Game, you've had 7 bottles of the fermented grain beverage I believe you refer to as beer, and you suddenly see a green skin creature with an insectoid head pointing a pink cylindrical device at you, please, don't grab your gun and shoot him. This being is a very important diplomat initiating first contact with your species, and that thing he is pointing at you is not a weapon. Rather, it's a device containing instructions on curing essentially every disease known to humanity, from AIDS to Lymphoma.
Anyway, I oughta get back home. Catch you guys in a few hundred years!
Ezee E
09-10-2008, 02:33 PM
NO..... Tell us about the future!
bac0n
09-10-2008, 07:21 PM
So... looks like my father in law (one of the LHC scientists) managed to not destroy the universe today!
You're welcome.
Duncan
09-10-2008, 07:50 PM
Others, worried about speculation that a black hole could emerge from the proton collisions, have called it a doomsday machine, to the dismay of CERN physicists who can point to a variety of studies and reports that say that this fear is nothing but science fiction.
More here (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/science/11collider.html?pagewanted=1&em). Pretty good article.
MadMan
09-10-2008, 08:13 PM
The Scar alias is beyond awesome :lol:
Also don't go yet Scar45th! What's my ancestor's name? Do I have one? I must know.....
bac0n
09-10-2008, 09:10 PM
Here's (http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth .com/) a handy site for those interested in tracking whether or not the LHC has destroyed the planet yet.
Ezee E
09-10-2008, 09:29 PM
Here's (http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth .com/) a handy site for those interested in tracking whether or not the LHC has destroyed the planet yet.
I'll be sure to check this daily.
Sycophant
09-10-2008, 09:39 PM
If you would prefer to stay updated on this and not have to go to the website every day, there's an RSS feed:
http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth .com/rss.xml
bac0n
09-10-2008, 10:11 PM
CERN LIVE WEBCAM (http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html)
MadMan
09-11-2008, 12:51 AM
CERN LIVE WEBCAM (http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html)That one is the best of the bunch posted :lol:
What I love the most though is the following video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzugu39pKM&eurl=http://icine.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15708&start=60
Heh.
monolith94
09-11-2008, 02:02 AM
Let me repeat myself: the notion that black holes will be created at the LHC is based on a theory of large extra dimensions that only gravity can propagate through, and on a pretty much arbitrary estimate of the size of the extra dimensions. (Maybe other theories have the same prediction, but that's the only one I've heard.) This theory has no empirical evidence supporting it. Wild theories like it pop up all the time, and there is no evidence that any of them are right or even meaningful. However, if you choose to believe these theories, then they also tell you that the black holes created at the LHC will evaporate almost instantaneously. Why do you trust the idea that the black holes will be created, but not the idea that they will decay much faster than they could possibly accumulate any significant mass? If verified physical theories predict that no black holes will be produced, and any theory that predicts they will be produced also predicts that they will evaporate almost instantly, what possible reason could you have for thinking that a black hole will be created and swallow the planet?
Because I know enough science to know that black holes are very scary, but not enough to really understand modern particle and gravity physics?
transmogrifier
09-11-2008, 02:20 AM
Because I know enough science to know that black holes are very scary, but not enough to really understand modern particle and gravity physics?
Counting on this line of reasoning has been the basis of a great many political campaigns. :)
Because I know enough politics to know that Muslims are very scary, but not enough to really understand what Islam really is, or the true extent of genuine Islamic extemism?
Lasse
09-11-2008, 08:52 PM
Greetings people of the beginning of the 21st century. My name is Bingbat Zglorb. I can trace my lineage back to the human race and from there through 45 generations to the human you refer to as Scar. I am 22 years old by the 2122 Sol Standard and have just attained my time travel license, and, as has become customary with those of my particular age group and station, we want to go as far back as we can, to year 0, day 0.
(We reset the numbering system for dates in 2075 after Drake McCracken mathematically disproved the existence of God, therefor rendering the BC/AD standard irrelevant. Ironically, Drake is the grandson of the person you know as Barty.)
I am here because I want to see what my infamous great great great (ad nauseum) grandfather was up to before the tragic events of Year 4, Day 175, and possibly to try and prevent the happenings of that awful day and prevent the interstellar war that would follow, which would almost completely wipe out both the human race, and the headstrong but otherwise peaceful space botanists of Rigel Theta.
So, Scar. I implore you. When you are sitting around watching The Vikings Game, you've had 7 bottles of the fermented grain beverage I believe you refer to as beer, and you suddenly see a green skin creature with an insectoid head pointing a pink cylindrical device at you, please, don't grab your gun and shoot him. This being is a very important diplomat initiating first contact with your species, and that thing he is pointing at you is not a weapon. Rather, it's a device containing instructions on curing essentially every disease known to humanity, from AIDS to Lymphoma.
Anyway, I oughta get back home. Catch you guys in a few hundred years!
How is Future Aud doing?
bac0n
09-11-2008, 10:24 PM
Another traveler from the future has arrived! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8b7FUe05g)
Dukefrukem
09-14-2008, 11:17 PM
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k204/firefighter3110/doomsday.jpg
Dukefrukem
09-18-2008, 08:39 PM
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424682,00.html
next week?! first.. only 6% total energy... next month.. 70%.
Dead & Messed Up
09-18-2008, 09:28 PM
...if verified physical theories predict that no black holes will be produced, and any theory that predicts they will be produced also predicts that they will evaporate almost instantly, what possible reason could you have for thinking that a black hole will be created and swallow the planet?
I suspect that, deep within us, we all have a burning desire to witness the apocalypse.
I suspect that, deep within us, we all have a burning desire to witness the apocalypse.
Or start it....
Sycophant
09-19-2008, 01:35 AM
I don't think I do... I really don't think I do. Even when I was Christian, I was like "That sounds awful. I don't wanna see that."
Winston*
09-19-2008, 02:20 AM
"If the apocalypse happens, it doesn't have to be all bad, here's how you can make it work for you. And you'll know when it's happening because, ZOMBIES. If the apocalypse happens, then it means that I'm wrong and there is a God and there is an afterlife. But here's the good news: in the afterlife, like in Heaven you'll be in the fuckin' VIP section of eternity! Cause everyone up there is like 'Hey, how'd you die?' And they're like 'Bus accident,' and 'How'd you die?' And they're like 'Fire ants.' Then they go 'How'd you die, man?' 'How'd I die? In the fuckin' apocalypse! Oh my God, it was awesome! I'm in the velvet rope section of eternity! You should've fuckin' been there man, fuckin' volcanoes came out of the ground and spewed menstrural blood into the sky, and then it formed into Avril Lavigne's face, and she recited the 'Good Will Hunting' screenplay, then the words turned into sentient razors and they bored into your flesh, George Bush was president and mediocrity held sway!'"
--Patton Oswalt
MadMan
09-19-2008, 04:05 AM
Patton Oswalt really is the shit :lol:
MadMan
09-26-2008, 05:18 AM
Was that spammer from the future, too? :P
Dukefrukem
02-23-2012, 01:48 PM
I brought up the 'faster than light' neutrons that were discovered in another thread.
But just saw this news.
now they're saying it was equipment malfunction for the neutrino experiment (http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html)
:(
Kurosawa Fan
02-23-2012, 01:56 PM
I brought up the 'faster than light' neutrons that were discovered in another thread.
But just saw this news.
now they're saying it was equipment malfunction for the neutrino experiment (http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html)
:(
So this means ghosts don't exist, right?
Dukefrukem
02-23-2012, 02:02 PM
So this means ghosts don't exist, right?
:cry:
MadMan
02-23-2012, 07:49 PM
I forgot all about this thread. Its a classic.
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