Large Hardon Collider

[Kaylia]

2012 is near. We have to find a way to wipe us out.

[Eliseos]

STRING THEORY GOTCHU!!!

[Mizango]

STRING THEORY GOTCHU!!!

lol

[Max™]

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/unscientific.png

Mouseover: Last week, we busted the myth that electroweak gauge symmetry is broken by the Higgs mechanism. We'll also examine the existence of God and whether true love exists.

[Mizango]

Oh wow haha

[Woozie]

"Then where'd they come from" had me laughing even harder than the end lol

[BerenTebogo]

LOL

[Mizango]

Fan-tas-tic.

[Max™]

GHOST-ZOMBIE FEYNMAN WANTS BOOBS!

[Woozie]

From Random Image Thread

Awesome lol

[Max™]

Not relevant, but funny enough to post anyway.
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/audiophiles.png


Thought this was interesting:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-...nism-dark.html

(PhysOrg.com) -- Through precise cosmological measurements, scientists know that about 4.6% of the energy of the Universe is made of baryonic matter (normal atoms), about 23% is made of dark matter, and the remaining 72% or so is dark energy. Scientists also know that almost all the baryonic matter in the observable Universe is matter (with a positive baryon charge) rather than antimatter (with a negative baryon charge). But exactly why this matter and energy came to be this way is still an open question. In a recent study, physicists have proposed a new mechanism that can generate both the baryon asymmetry and the dark matter density of the Universe simultaneously.

In this matter-formation scenario, a new particle X and its antiparticle X-bar (of equal and opposite charge) are produced in the early Universe. X and X-bar are capable of coupling to quarks (the basic components of baryonic matter, e.g., protons and neutrons) in the visible sector as well as particles in a “hidden” sector (so-called because the particles in it interact only feebly with the visible sector). In this scenario X and X-bar would have been produced when the Universe heated up after inflation, in the first moments after at the start of the big bang.
Later, X and X-bar would decay, partly into visible baryons (specifically, a neutron made up of one up quark and two down quarks) and partly into hidden baryons. As the scientists explain, X decays to neutrons more often than X-bar decays to antineutrons. By the same amount, X-bar decays to hidden antiparticles more than X decays to hidden particles. In this scenario, the quarks would be the baryonic matter that makes up almost everything we see, and the hidden antibaryons would be what we know as dark matter. Through this yin-yang decay pattern, the positive baryon number of the visible matter is in balance with the negative baryon number of the dark matter.

[Kaylia]

This so called "invisible sector" is an amazing magic box. Is there anything it can't do? Can we link matter to dark energy, because it's "just" a factor of 15? I don't know... without additional explanation, it feels like a stretch to call the ratio similar.


@ "X decays to neutrons more often than X-bar decays to antineutrons. "
Ohhhh....wait..what? Isn't it exactly what the asymetry problem is...opposite particles that behave differently? It's a model that encapsulate the problem, it doesnt explain it. They basically added another property to the matter, and called it a day.

The whole idea isn't stupid, but isn't this exactly like the mirror universe idea proposed many time already? The only difference this time is the link between matter and dark matter, but it's kinda a stretch with the current data.

[Max™]

I never said it was anything but an interesting read.

[Kaylia]

I never said it was anything but an interesting read.

I know, I wasnt complaining about your post.

[Woozie]

With its aging work force, nuclear power could be a career of the future

Spoiler: show

Carol Berrigan used to hear many of the same questions from high school seniors when she made her pitch for a career in the nuclear power industry.

"What I'd typically get was: 'Oh, we have nuclear power plants?' or 'I didn't think we did that anymore,' or 'I didn't think you guys were hiring,'" said Berrigan, senior director for industry infrastructure at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade association for reactor operators.

For a while, at least that last point has held true.

Three decades after the partial meltdown of a reactor at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, further expansion of nuclear power has remained at a standstill. Years of stagnant hiring led to "a greatly reduced interest among undergraduates in nuclear science and engineering programs," the American Physical Society, an independent group of physicists, said in a recent report, finding that the number of college nuclear engineering programs had dropped from 66 in the early 1980s to 30 in 2008.

"The industry went through a period of very stable work force and not much growth," said Warren Waggenspack, associate dean for academic programs at Louisiana State University's College of Engineering. "For a long time, there wasn't much movement within the industry, and thus, not much hiring."

Alternative energy

That's changed. As Congress continues to discuss climate change legislation that would likely set a cost to carbon pollution of fossil fuels, proponents of the industry have touted nuclear energy as producing 20 percent of the country's electricity and its No. 1 source of emission-free electricity.

A year after President Barack Obama publicly endorsed a new generation of nuclear power in his State of the Union address, many in the nuclear power industry have recognized the potential work force problem and are taking new steps to help put to rest some of those lingering questions about pursuing a career in the field.

New nuclear power plants create upward of 1,800 high-paying jobs on average during construction, with peak employment estimated as high as 2,400 jobs during that period, and yield 400 to 700 positions once the plants are up and running, according to statistics from the Nuclear Energy Institute, which contends that nuclear plants generate about $40 million each year in labor income.

"When you start looking at oil and gas prices and things going up, and whenever there's an emphasis on alternative forms of energy, nuclear is not the first option that you'll hear, but it's always part of the conversation," Waggenspack said.

Last month, Entergy New Orleans, a subsidiary of the New Orleans-based power provider Entergy Corp., hosted a free, three-hour workshop on nuclear power production for Orleans Parish public school math and science teachers. The program, called Power Path to Nuclear Energy, offered training, curriculum materials and the potential for bringing guest lecturers into the classroom in an effort to spur an early interest in nuclear science in sixth- through 12th-grade students.

"With this program, Entergy is helping build the work force of the future starting right here in our community," said Charles Rice, president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans, which provides electricity on the east bank of Orleans Parish.

It has a lot at stake: Entergy Corp. is the second-largest nuclear power generator in the nation, and it is among more than a dozen companies considering building upward of 30 new nuclear plants, including one in Louisiana. However, that plan was put on hold last year after Entergy failed to strike a deal with the manufacturer of its reactor of choice.

Work force training

Still, even if students decide not to pursue careers as a nuclear engineer, physicist or technician, Entergy officials say the materials help raise awareness about nuclear power.

"You're reinforcing math and science skills at the same time," said John Wheeler, head of work force development for Entergy Nuclear. "It would be great if a student chose to go into the nuclear power industry, but if they choose to do something else with their career, eventually, if it's in the science and technology field, that's good for everybody."

To help the effort, LSU began offering students the opportunity to enroll in nuclear engineering as a minor, a move intended to provide training in specialized skills like nuclear power plant design and operation. So far, 13 students have enrolled, according to Waggenspack, associate dean at the college.

"The technology has advanced significantly in the intervening years," he said. "There are good engineering challenges that some of these kids want to address in providing good, safe nuclear power."

Entergy has also benefited from the program. "It's paying off already in terms of the closer working relationship that Entergy has with the university," Wheeler said. "It'll take a couple of years for it to start producing students and graduates with that background, but already, we see a big advantage in terms of those working relationships."

Amid all the hand-wringing about the comeback of the nuclear power industry, Wheeler believes that "the urgency has probably died off a little bit" as natural gas prices have declined over the past five years.

"We're still going to have to replace the existing work force that is aging out," he said, "but the rate at which we'll be adding new workers because of new power plants is going to be a little bit slower."

http://www.nola.com/business/index.s...orce_nucl.html

Other interesting-sounding stories that I haven't read yet:

Particle Pings: Sounds of the Large Hadron Collider
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/02/132415...adron-collider

U.S. Department of Energy makes $1.5B loan to massive solar plant
Morgan Erickson-Davis
http://news.mongabay.com/2010/1229-m...doe_solar.html

Statistical modeling could help us understand cosmic acceleration
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-...al-cosmic.html

How to Test What Really Happened After the Big Bang
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/20...ing-inflation/

Why Didn't Obama Mention Landmark Science Legislation?
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencein...rk.html?ref=hp

[Kaylia]

Cosmic acceleration and Bigbang stories were pretty good read. That's how media should write science.

[Kryssan]

Go away for a bit and miss a radiation question.


As others have stated, radiation is a buzz word people like to throw around, but it really isn't the dirty little secret people would try to make it out to be.


In the terms of your computer components, you have very little to worry about. As for statistics, actually quite a few studies have been done. The cumulative average since the birth of nuclear power to 2005 shows that for a given radiation worker, 4 out of 10000 will die of cancer in addition to those that would die of cancer from other causes not related to radiation work. Cancer is a stochastic effect, so it isn't something you can define in anything but a probability - the four daughters problem explanation.


Could you theoretically get cancer from the electromagnetics of your cell phone, computer, whathaveyou? Sure. After all, there is a reason people aren't allowed on a radar/radio/transmission tower when it's operating. The microwaves from some of that equipment would fry you quick fast and in a hurry. But lets take a realistic view - the damage done in that scenario is all acute, not chronic, and more importantly the energy levels being put off by that equipment is several factors above anything your handheld device could do. As it has been pointed out though, anything that can get in and screw up your DNA has the potential for causing cancer.


So then, we have to break things down further. There are two major types of radiation, ionizing and non-ionizing. Ionizing is the stuff most people are talking about when they mention radiation - alpha/beta/gamma/neutron/cosmic/etc - and the stuff that changes the properties of materials. Here is where the cookie example comes into play - You are given four cookies. One of them is an alpha emitter, another a beta, another a gamma, and the last a neutron. You have to hold one, eat one, place one in your pocket, and throw the other away. Where do you place them? The correct answer for the example is to place the alpha cookie into your hand, place the beta cookie in your pocket, eat the gamma cookie, and throw away the neutron cookie. Alphas are stopped by paper, so your skin will won't take much - the top layers are dead anyway. Betas are stopped by a sheet of metal, or by human skin - so your clothes in combination with your skin will suffice. Gammas and neutrons go right through you, so you must examine quality factors - the neutron is going to do significant damage in comparison to the gamma, so toss it.


This example is really simplistic though, and does not take into account the way the radiation is absorbed. You'll notice Radon on that little piechart above. Radon is the major source of radiation exposure humans deal with, and in some areas can even be enough of a risk that you should have a radon detector in your house to inform you of temperature inversions so that you may take appropriate action to minimize your exposure. However, the Radon - Radium decay chain is an alpha emitter, so why the concern? You can stop it with paper, right? Your house should be fine then, no? Well, the problem is that radon is a gas, that decays into radium, a particulate - and if you breathe in the radon it will decay into radium in your lungs and give you a massive internal dose. Alphas may be stopped by paper, but that's because they're so huge with such a high electrostatic charge - alpha's actually have the highest quality factor, and thus are the most damaging of the four most well known radiation sources. An alpha particle will deal twice as much damage as a fast neutron (where a fast neutron is defined with an average flux speed of 2240m/s at an energy level in excess of 1KeV [1000 to 640 eV is the resonance region, anything less than 640 eV is thermal], usually >2MeV), making it a potent threat indeed if an emitter is absorbed by the body.


So let me bring up someone else - someone I think I've mentioned on these boards in the past. When I was in college at NCSU I got to meet Dr. Murray during a safety seminar, one of the junior guys on the Manhattan Project who got to work on the original pile and work with people like Fermi. Besides just being an all around crazy cool guy who's forgotten more about nuclear power than I'll ever know, he carries around a piece of uranium from the original pile in a lead glass cube in his pants pocket. Yes, you heard me right - his pants pocket. Where it's been for over five decades, as he always carries it with him. The guy was still alive and cancerless in 2001 when I received that seminar.


So - do you need to worry about it? Nah. I'd say you'll probably be just fine. I wouldn't necessarily suggest walking around with some uranium in your pocket though - probably tempting fate a bit too much with that one.


As to you what you were saying Kaylia, I'm not familiar with R^3 for dose rate problems. For one, there are three types of dose rate problems - point/line/plane. The only one that is close to what you describe is a point source, where Dose Rate 1 at Radius 1 squared is equivalent to Dose Rate 2 at Radius 2 squared. DR(1)*r(1)^2=DR(2)*r(2)^2 or DR(1)=DR(2)*(r(2)/r(1))^2. None of the functions are cubic though.

[Woozie]

I think the r^3 was a typo. I think Kaylia was referring to the basic geometry principle that for a point source, the intensity of whatever is being emitted will decrease by r^2 as you move away from the source, which seems to be consistent with your dose rate problems.

[Kaylia]

As to you what you were saying Kaylia, I'm not familiar with R^3 for dose rate problems. For one, there are three types of dose rate problems - point/line/plane. The only one that is close to what you describe is a point source, where Dose Rate 1 at Radius 1 squared is equivalent to Dose Rate 2 at Radius 2 squared. DR(1)*r(1)^2=DR(2)*r(2)^2 or DR(1)=DR(2)*(r(2)/r(1))^2. None of the functions are cubic though.

Nah, you're right. Radiation decreate with r² (the surface of a sphere around a source), I'm not sure how why I wrote r³ post (typo? late night insanity? i don't know). I didn't mention anything about redirected radiation either (beam) because it's rarely is the case in everyday life.

My argument was that a TV, even if it emits more powerful electromagnetic radiation than a cellphone will give you a much smaller dose. That's why cellphones are targeted by the media more than the rest of

[Ferion]

Ironically I was just reading this article today:

http://emf.mercola.com/sites/emf/arc...spx?aid=CD1057

Don't really know what to make of it, I'm sure not many people are going to change their cell phone habits unless some kind of evidence for a direct link comes out.