I've been struggling to write something sensible about yesterday's big news out of CERN in Geneva, to wit:
GENEVA, March 31 (Reuters) - Physicists at CERN, buoyed by their ground-breaking success in creating mini-Big Bangs, giving them a glimpse of the dawn of time, have set their sights on pushing closer to the very birth of the universe.
[...]
The aim is to increase in the coming months the flow of data on what happens when particles smash into each other at a total force of 7 million million electron volts, or 7TeV, and at a mini-fraction under the speed of light.
At those powers, the collisions came very close to simulating events just nano-parts of a second after the real Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago which led to the creation of galaxies, stars, life on Earth, and perhaps life elsewhere.
The Large Hadron Collider achieved its first collisions at 7 TeV yesterday, prompting this lil celebration (Do not adjust your set. The video is from a webcam and it's jerky.):
I find this subject fascinating even though (a) I don't understand 99% of what I see or read and (b) the discussions tend to make my head hurt. Speaking of discussions... Charlie Rose had two noted physicists involved with the LHC project... Lisa Randall of Harvard and Kyle Cranmer of NYU... on his show last evening. The 30-minute discussion that ensued is highly recommended if you find the LHC fascinating and/or want to know more about what the physicists are doing with it.
And just to keep things in character here at EIP, lest you think I'm getting too deep... I have a new lust object:
That's a screen cap of Ms. Randall from last night's "Charlie Rose." The woman is HOT. "Talk nerdy to me, Baybee..."
That picture grab shows her looking down on someone/something.
ReplyDeleteNot comfortable.
Smart women are always hot. And sometimes they look down on people. Especially if they went to Harvard and studied the "hard" sciences.
ReplyDeleteHeh.
BANG!!!
veriword: mices. As in more than one mouse. I didn't go to Harvard.
Darryl: I'll disagree with your observation, even though Moogie touches on a possibility (that smart women might occasionally look down on people. With just cause.). I prefer to think she's being suitably pensive in response to a question. But then again, I have the benefit of having watched the interview in its entirety.
ReplyDeleteMoogie: Ah. You've touched on The Truth i.e., smart women are ALWAYS hot. I wanna do a post on this subject at some point in the future. But I need to consolidate my excrement, yanno? ;-)
Have to say this is a very interesting subject. And, no, I don't understand it and it irritates me that I DON'T understand it. Seems like I should be able to grasp the rudimentary aspects.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, tho, my eyes glaze over and that Winnie the Pooh quote slips out -- "It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"”
I know, I know, shame on me. ;)
I'm not real sure there's such a thing as "rudimentary" when it comes to particle physics. It ALL seems to be esoteric. To my eyes, anyhoo.
ReplyDeleteShame on me too.