Although it might be tempting to think the LHC is somehow “cursed” (or that time-traveling Higgs bosons from the future are sabotaging any attempt at discovering this elusive particle), this is what happens at the frontier of physics.
The LHC is a revolutionary piece of kit, only one will ever be built and the keenest physicist minds are trying to make this complex machine work.
“The standard phrase is that the LHC is its own prototype,” Dr. Steve Myers, director of the particle smasher, told the BBC today. “We are pushing technologies towards their limits.”
So, you have undoubtedly heard of the Chilean quake, the whole 8.8 thing.. you know, the one that released 66.6 exajoules of power? You know the one that knocked Earth off it’s axis? Oh yeah, you didn’t hear about that?
Think about that for a second, think of how powerful it must be to actually SHIFT EARTHS AXIS.
“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”
Well, at least this is good news for any chap who has promised to make love to his partner “all night”.. it just got 1.26 microseconds easier. BOOSH!
No, this isn’t another post on my flowery youth, this is a simple link to a photoblog of pictures people have taken, with brief blurbs, of the one who got away.
I love this stuff, very depressio, I have plenty of pictures of my own, but I couldn’t dare post them.
So RedWriteWeb makes a post about facebook.. Idiots who search for facebook on google rather than typing in facebook.com in the location bar (or bookmarking) start commenting thinking it is the new login page to facebook. There was a lady at my last job who used to google yahoo.com so she could go to yahoo and search for something… and as we’ve seen in the monthly stats, we do get a few people who stumble upon this website by searching for godawful.com… anyway.. at last look there are about 20 pages of comments with the majority of people complaining about how they can’t log in to facebook now.. here is a sample.
All I wanted to do was LOG IN TO MY FACE BOOK ACCOUNT! I don’t like this new way! “If it an’t broke why fix it?”
I’m not very pleased now w/ the new facebook. Simplified? Well, I’m not so sure. I typed a message to my daughter and went to send it and could not fine a SEND button!! I couldn’t even close the message box and had to close the whole site and log back online. AARRRGGHHHH! Please, let me know where it went.
He begins by considering the total set of universes in the multiverse and defines the subset in which the parameters and fundamental constants are compatible with the anthropic principle. This is the subset {c-cosmo}.
He then considers the subset of these universes in which astrophysical conditions are ripe for star and galaxy formation {c-astro}. Next he looks at the subset of these in which planets form that are capable of harbouring life {c-life}. And finally he defines the subset of these in which complex life actually arises {c-complex life}.
Then the conditions for complex life to emerge in a particular universe in the multiverse must satisfy the statement at the top of this post (where the composition symbol denotes ‘together with’).
It would seem to me that when dealing with infinity that every answer would remain infinite.. uh… man.
Take {c-cosmo} for example. Gleiser points out a few of the obvious parameters that would need to taken into account in deriving a probability. These are the vacuum energy density, matter-antimatter asymmetry, dark matter density, the couplings of the four fundamental forces and the masses of quarks and leptons so that hadrons and then nuclei can form after electroweak symmetry breaking. Try assigning a probability to that lot.
Neither is it much easier for {c-astro}. This needs to take into account the fact that heavy elements seem to be important for the emergence of life which only seem to occur in galaxies above a certain mass and in stars of a certain type and age. Estimating the probability of these conditions occurring is still beyond astronomers.
At first glance, the third set {c-life} ought to be easier to handle. This must take into account the planetary and chemical constraints on the formation of life. The presence of liquid water and various elements such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen seem to be important as do more complex molecules. How common these conditions are, we don’t yet know.
Finally there is {c-complex life}, which includes all the planetary factors that must coincide for complex life to emerge. These may include long term orbital stability, the presence of a magnetic field to protect delicate biomolecules, plate tectonics, a large moon and so on. That’s not so easy to estimate either.
So in summary, it is a rather pointless equation.. don’t go tattooing it on your back just yet, kids.
Posted by: Valerie Jean Thompson Merricks | 
Posted by: Dan Danahoo | 
Posted by: Sandra | 
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