Large Hardon Collider

[Tristam]

Climate change is a theological argument anyways, so obviously we should leave it to our politicians.

http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2010/11/aghast.php

[Shiroikage]

Climate change is a theological argument anyways, so obviously we should leave it to our politicians.

http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/2010/11/aghast.php

Why do you undermine my efforts to get Max to shut the fuck up by trying to change the subject?

[Max™]

I think maybe you did more damage to your cause by revealing your master plan?

[Shiroikage]

Fuck you, go die in a fire.

[Max™]

Oh come on, tell me how you really feel, toots.

[Shiroikage]

You are a terrible.

[Max™]

Hearing this from a Canadian, somehow it doesn't quite have the sting I think you intended.

[Psion]

I could care less about the accuracy of climate change dangers, considering that the technology, economic boons, and health benefits of assuming it's a high threat, coupled with the possibility it's real, far outweigh assuming it's not. (especially if it turns out that climate change was indeed a real threat, and humanity is now extinct 20 years from now or something.)

Seriously, no one's view is going to change, it's worse than arguing whether psychic power exists or not, because at least that one can be tested at least somewhat. (fun fact: there's better evidence for PK existing than evidence that aspirin lowers your chance of a heart attack.) Climate change on the other hand, not only is a polarizing topic, but one that's not something you can exactly go out and test for obvious reasons, ethical, technical, and time-wise.

Let's just assume climate change is real, drastic, and needs immediate measures to counteract it. There's no real harm in working from that assumption, and plenty of good to be had from it. And if nothing else, the extra CO2 is acidifying the oceans and fucking up marine life, there's no question on that. Regardless of how much it's going to affect our atmospheric temperatures and sea level, there's real world-wide damage being done by all the extra CO2, and it needs to be stopped.

Unless you want to just let all the ocean life die off and only the few hardy ones survive till they adapt to their new acidic oceans, but considering how much the world depends on the ocean for food and production of many things, and that with billions of people on the planet the demand would suddenly be incredibly higher than the supply the ocean could provide, even evolution might not be fast enough. Hell, i don't think even guppies would breed fast enough if they were suddenly the last thing edible in the ocean for the world to use.

[Max™]

Let me assure you, if the planet warms 3 or 4 degrees C in 20 years, we won't be going extinct. Civilization arose during a period with similar temperatures.

The problem is enacting drastic social and economic reforms based on a threat that we know about from computer modeling. If the models are correct, that is one thing. I happen to know that the models are NO FUCKING WHERE near the point where they can replace experiment and observation... so I'm leery of anyone who advocates dramatic responses which will have significant direct costs, and unknown potential costs in the future... based on "well, the GCM said shit was going to be fucked up otherwise".

[Woozie]

Another chemistry question:

Do I really want to know what grade I got on my last chemistry exam? Please express your answer to this question in kJ/mol

Anyone past their third year of a B.Sc. should have read enough literature by that point to be able to handle any sort of writing, no matter how boring it is.

I'm just saying. Kudos to anyone who hasn't fallen asleep while reading a journal before.

Good point, but I haven't tried to read any of his books in years. Besides, it's hard enough to read a 5~10 page journal article that's relevant to my research (and when they're longer than 10 pages my chances of reading them drop dramatically, even if half of it is graphs and tables). I don't think I have it in me to read a book I find boring if it's 300 pages and my research or grades don't depend on it.

[Shiroikage]

All of the most relevant papers relating to my research are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 pages. I am literally fishing for pity.

[Woozie]

See, this is why I'll never be a good scientist. I just can't read (or write) 15 pages.

[Shiroikage]

If it makes you feel better, I will never be a good scientist for a very wide variety of reasons.

[Mizango]

Ahhh, climate change I'm actually with Max on this one, just because something is "natural" does not mean that is cant be expedited. For instance, I know and am fine with the fact that one day I will die, but that does not mean I cant accelerate this "natural" process by being a fattie, smoking, indulging in gluttonous sex with unclean women, sky diving with a bed sheet instead of a regulation chute etc.

I hate the argument of "Well we should see this and see that based on what you said" as Psion posted earlier, because that logic is applicable to any facet of life that we know. You cant call something false simply because it doesn't fit into what you deem as illogical. Not throwing you under the bus, but you have to realize that there is a lot of smoke and misguided "facts" being tossed out by both sides, but I do know that you can certainly expedite certain processes, we do it and take that chance daily every time we leave the house.

[Acturus]

See, this is why I'll never be a good scientist. I just can't read (or write) 15 pages.

FYI, I'm writing two research papers averaging 15-pages every nine weeks as part of a masters degree program that has nothing to do with hard science. Research and writing on research is pretty widespread.

[Woozie]

FYI, I'm writing two research papers averaging 15-pages every nine weeks as part of a masters degree program that has nothing to do with hard science. Research and writing on research is pretty widespread.

Okay, then I'll never be good at anything.

Looking at all the journal papers I had to read so far for my quantum pendulums/josephson junctions research, only one of them is longer than 10 pages, and that's including pages that are mostly graphs. Maybe I'll just stick with this research for the rest of my life.

Edit: Speaking of my research, anyone else here going to be at the APS March Meeting? I'm guessing the only other physics major in here that does research is Kaylia. Are you by any chance going to be there?

[Woozie]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20101110.gif

[Mizango]

lmfao, that is great.

[Ferion]

The problem is enacting drastic social and economic reforms based on a threat that we know about from computer modeling.

This. I have no problem with trying to reform to prevent climate change. However, I do have a huge problem with the ideas that incur huge social and economic costs on companies/people based on models that still seem to be very controversial.

[Kaylia]

Edit: Speaking of my research, anyone else here going to be at the APS March Meeting? I'm guessing the only other physics major in here that does research is Kaylia. Are you by any chance going to be there?

I definitively won't be there. My research started last summer, so I really doubt I will be doing much traveling outside Canada this year.


Also, big bubble around our galaxy
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GL...structure.html

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centered in the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years and may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the center of our galaxy.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/4...ls-226x163.jpg
"What we see are two gamma-ray-emitting bubbles that extend 25,000 light-years north and south of the galactic center," said Doug Finkbeiner, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who first recognized the feature. "We don't fully understand their nature or origin."

The structure spans more than half of the visible sky, from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus, and it may be millions of years old. A paper about the findings has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Finkbeiner and his team discovered the bubbles by processing publicly available data from Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT). The LAT is the most sensitive and highest-resolution gamma-ray detector ever launched. Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light.

Other astronomers studying gamma rays hadn't detected the bubbles partly because of a fog of gamma rays that appears throughout the sky. The fog happens when particles moving near the speed of light interact with light and interstellar gas in the Milky Way. The LAT team constantly refines models to uncover new gamma-ray sources obscured by this so-called diffuse emission. By using various estimates of the fog, Finkbeiner and his colleagues were able to isolate it from the LAT data and unveil the giant bubbles.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/4...eV-226x127.jpg
Scientists now are conducting more analyses to better understand how the never-before-seen structure was formed. The bubble emissions are much more energetic than the gamma-ray fog seen elsewhere in the Milky Way. The bubbles also appear to have well-defined edges. The structure's shape and emissions suggest it was formed as a result of a large and relatively rapid energy release - the source of which remains a mystery.

One possibility includes a particle jet from the supermassive black hole at the galactic center. In many other galaxies, astronomers see fast particle jets powered by matter falling toward a central black hole. While there is no evidence the Milky Way's black hole has such a jet today, it may have in the past. The bubbles also may have formed as a result of gas outflows from a burst of star formation, perhaps the one that produced many massive star clusters in the Milky Way's center several million years ago.

"In other galaxies, we see that starbursts can drive enormous gas outflows," said David Spergel, a scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey. "Whatever the energy source behind these huge bubbles may be, it is connected to many deep questions in astrophysics."

Hints of the bubbles appear in earlier spacecraft data. X-ray observations from the German-led Roentgen Satellite suggested subtle evidence for bubble edges close to the galactic center, or in the same orientation as the Milky Way. NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe detected an excess of radio signals at the position of the gamma-ray bubbles.

The Fermi LAT team also revealed Tuesday the instrument's best picture of the gamma-ray sky, the result of two years of data collection.

"Fermi scans the entire sky every three hours, and as the mission continues and our exposure deepens, we see the extreme universe in progressively greater detail," said Julie McEnery, Fermi project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

NASA's Fermi is an astrophysics and particle physics partnership, developed in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, with important contributions from academic institutions and partners in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

"Since its launch in June 2008, Fermi repeatedly has proven itself to be a frontier facility, giving us new insights ranging from the nature of space-time to the first observations of a gamma-ray nova," said Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These latest discoveries continue to demonstrate Fermi's outstanding performance.”