From 4:30am to 12:30pm you can watch CERN’s Large Hadron Collider start up live here. Or maybe not. There’s a good chance that the stream will be overwhelmed and you won’t see a damn thing. But still, it’s worth a shot.
This is a pretty amazing moment.
I’m not sure why exactly; the physics are way beyond me. But I do know this: It’s incredible that humans can build and operate this thing. While these people are playing billiards with particles, I can’t even fly a kite and it takes me about six putts to put a ball into a hole from ten feet away.
There is, of course, a bad side to this.
The other human side.
Some believe that this thing will bring about the end of the world. There’s some reasonable sounding ideas about all that — monopoles, black holes, and even time travel. Under normal circumstances, these ideas may not sound so reasonable — they may even land you in a psychiatric ward- but physics is completely daft. There could be something to it.
We’ll find out.
I have an open mind. But my open mind closes when the Jehovah’s Witnesses of sheer stupidity come a-knocking. And Lately, the anti-CERN lobby has started engaging in the sheerest stupidity I’ve seen in a while. They’re even launching lawsuits to prevent the LHC from starting. And why? Surely, if one is to overthrow a remarkable human accomplishment and stop scientific progress, they must have a good reason.
Or not.
I don’t know about the people throwing the lawsuit but the people who are afraid of the LHC are twits. They’re talking about the Mayans, their stupid fucking calendar and the year 2012. I listen to conspiracy radio — nothing else on late at night– and I hear them.
You see, the Mayans really didn’t know shit. Like most ancients, moderns and post-moderns, they were a fundamentally backward people who engaged in human sacrifice. Apparently they had a calendar and apparently this calendar stops in 2012. Even if that much is true — which I doubt– all it proves is that the Mayans failed to figure out leap years.
People keep saying that the leap year proves the inferiority of our calendar. I have no idea why people think that. It’s such a ridiculous contention that it’s impossible to argue it. Our calendar happens to be pretty bloody advanced and based on astronomy. It corrects itself every four years. So what? Good for it.
And what breed of mind thinks that because a calendar ends, so does the world? It’s just some shit that the bald apes came up with to organize their economy. I came of age in the 1990s. I’ve seen and heard all this end of the world stuff before. Back then it was because the number on our calendar was changing from a 1 into a 2. Nostradamus –that ancient crackpot– apparently had some notions about that.
Well, you don’t hear too much about that fellow anymore. And come 2013 you won’t hear too much about the Mayans. Some other idiocy will be getting sold to the dips, flakes and rubes. I’m guessing asteroid.
And if the LHC brings about the end of the world, you might as well tune in and watch it here. If you can get the stream to work. Which I can’t. So, if the world does end — someone drop me an email or something.
I’ll post a correction.
2 comments
LaRazon
September 10, 2008 at 9:45 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Every 52 years, they Mayans would correct for “leap” days in a 13 day ceremony. Perhaps you should figure out “reading” before spouting off about their “stupid fucking calendar”. Of course, the end-of-the-world interpretations of the Mayan calendar come from folks equally misinformed…
Ryan Oakley
September 10, 2008 at 11:31 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’m happy to be corrected about their stupid fucking calendar — even if by an asshole.
But I’m not sure your correction is completely accurate.
Though I spend as much time reading about this calendar as I do about bigfoot or alien abduction, here’s what five minutes during my morning coffee has uncovered:
“As a calendar for keeping track of the seasons, the Haab’ was crude and inaccurate, since it treated the year as having 365 days, and ignored the extra quarter day (approximately) in the actual tropical year. This meant that the seasons moved with respect to the calendar year by a quarter day each year, so that the calendar months named after particular seasons no longer corresponded to these seasons after a few centuries. The Haab’ is equivalent to the wandering 365-day year of the ancient Egyptians. Some argue that the Maya knew about and compensated for the quarter day error[citation needed], even though their calendar did not include anything comparable to a leap year, a method first implemented by the Romans.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar#Haab.27
Like I say, that’s just a glance. So if you have further information please feel free to share it.
Also, I’d like to know your interpretation of the end of the calendar.