This is everywhere already, but what the hell...

[desperance]

I have been cheerfully keeping up with the Large Hadron Collider, step by step this morning (it's much more fun than working). So, I am absolutely the man to ask:

Has the LHC destroyed the earth yet?

Comments

[anef.livejournal.com]

My impression from the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7604293.stm is that although they have now sent stuff around the ring one way, they have not yet started smashing atoms together. Or protons. Or whatever. Can you enlighten me?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup, absolutely right. Softly softly end the world: this morning they send the beam around one way. This afternoon, they try the other way. All of it very throttled-back, low power. It could be weeks or months before they actually start chucking things at each other; hence, weeks or months before the world might actually end.

We just have to keep checking in at that website; if "no" changes to "yes", we're in trouble...

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

There is an RSS feed...

I can't help but think that this page is a prime hobby hacker target now. It'll be interesting to see if anyone manages to make it say "Yes".

Actually, it really should say "YES" in small caps, like the Death of Discworld.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Softly's going to end the world! Oh noes!

I didn't think he was that sort of bear.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." I say it will be huggled to death by a particularly soft and gentle bear.

This may take some time.

[markdeniz.livejournal.com]

Pardon, I didn't quite catch what you said there...

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Ah, sorry, let me see if I can clarify it for you:

NO

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

I think they should build one that works directly on quantum uncertainty, so the website would say "Yes, and No". And contain a cat.

[silly-swordsman.livejournal.com]

And contain a cat.

On the internet? That would inevitably lead to "I can haz higgsboson nao?"

[desperance.livejournal.com]

And so it should. The cat-particle! It's a beautiful thought.

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Two totally disconnected comments:

• shewhomust and I were discussing this with an eminent professor of mathematics and, if I understood him right, he said that if you were inside a black hole you might not notice it for some while. The point being that its intense gravitational field prevents light from getting out, but not from getting in.
• Did you know that you^* can register domain names ending in 'cat'?

^*Well, actually not, as you do not meet the qualifying criteria.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Um, I thought that same intense gravitational field would've kinda squashed you to a point, before you reached the point of wondering where you were...?

And now I need domain names ending in .cat. I have a Teach Yourself Catalan - will that do? (It is the official language of Andorra, so I did learn a little before I went. That of course was twenty-some years ago, and all I remember is that "ampulla" means bottle; is that enough, d'you suppose? Is there a test?)