CERN is almost ready!
Those of us who take in a regular diet of "physics-for-laymen" literature have been waiting for this for a very long time. The CERN collider is set to go online Sept. 10! We may finally get the answers to help us figure out the "standard model" of particle physics... like whether or not we should chuck the whole thing entirely!
Wow... I just don't think it's possible to overstate how exciting this is...
*blink*
Hey, they flipped the switch and the world wasn't destroyed. All right!
...and the really happy news is that Big Bang Day is on Hump Day. How charming... and WOOT!
Big Bang Day
So what the heck are we all doing sitting at desks typing data into a computer? Wait a sec...data in a stream, a stream of on/off switches, switching a current, a current of electricity composed of particles...
Heh, so do you think the "hump" is the highest point of the probability wave? :-)
Big Bang Day
Hehe! I don't think you quite understand... umm... the gravity of the situation...
Sorry, the forces are bigger than me... couldn't stop myself!
Photos
of CERN's Hadron Collider. Def worth checking out.
WOWZA!!!
That is so cool! The BBC coverage looks great! I find it very cool that Eddie Izzard's involved--that's just fun :-)
For anyone who's looking for a primer on string theory I highly recommend this TED talk with Brian Greene (I may have posted elsewhere before). Greene also has great books on Quantum Physics (Elegant Universe, Fabric of the Cosmos). And Elegant Universe was also done as a series of shows on Nova which you can see on YouTube.
All Your Large Hadron Colliders Are Belong to Us
I receive an email from SQE Publishing - "Sticky Minds"... a website related to software testing. Today's email caught my eye and reminded me of this forum topic.
**Bug of the Month**
This month's Bug of the Month isn't so much a bug as a security oversight that, termite like, could have gnawed away at the very study of science. It took thirteen years for the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to go from approval of construction to completion, but it took only moments for hackers to break into part of its network.
Earlier this month, the LHC went online. The scientists flipped the switch, and protons began spinning around the facility. Some of the experiments that will be conducted within the LHC may change the way we understand our universe--both the very big and the very small parts.
And while the machinery has been turned on and proven to work, the experiments won't begin in earnest for a few months, and results may take a few years. Scientists are a patient bunch.
Hackers, however, can be rather eager. As the LHC was revving up, a group calling itself the Greek Security Team "broke into a subsystem of the LHC network and left a message asserting its authority," according to a post by managed security services provider MX Logic.
The authoritative message, as reported by an article in The Daily Telegraph, read, "We are 2600 - dont mess with us. [sic]"
It was posted to cmsmon.cern.ch, which is a monitoring system for the LHC. The hackers were not able to access the system that controls the LHC, but any hack is bad news for scientists who for months have had to quell concerns that operation of the LHC might create a black hole that would suck the Earth into oblivion.
Cmsmon.cern.ch has been taken offline as of this writing.
Related Articles:
http://www.stickyminds.com/HackersMockColliderSecurity
http://www.stickyminds.com/LHCHackHighlightsRisks
If you come across a bug that you think can compete for the title of Bug of the Month, send it to Joey McAllister at jmcallister@sqe.com for possible inclusion in the next Between the Lines.