What a Beautiful Apocalypse

[trailingvortex]

The LHC has switched on, generated data with the highest energy collisions ever produced, and we're not all either sucked into an artifical black hole or disconstituted because the very laws of physics have been altered. The scientists at Los Alamos predicted that a nuclear test might cause the world's atmophere to catch fire, but that didn't stop

Comments

[clarienne]

The LHC is extremely cool. Did you know that apocalypse in greek technically means 'revelation' - literally 'lifting of the veil' - rather than 'mass destruction' as it is commonly misunderstood. Possibly still an appropriate word in the scientific sense here :)

[trailingvortex]

I suppose it is!!!

I keep forgetting that you're a proper theologian and all... :D

[gedhrel]

That's a lovely sound. And remarkably accurate, too: presumably the compositions use the natural resonant frequencies of the drum (he was detuning it with hand pressure at one point). How super!

[trailingvortex]

I have no musical understanding whatsoever, at least beyond a sense of "Ooooh, prettyyyyy!". You sound like you must be able to play something, but I am not aware as to what it is. Do you?

[casidhe36]

Ukelele!

[trailingvortex]

That is the epitome of awesome! I respect (well, mostly fear) Jan even more now!

[praxia]

How exactly can this end the world again?

[trailingvortex]

Tiny black holes might appear and swallow the earth. Though Hawking radiation should really cause these to evaporate before they can cause any harm.

Alternatively 'strangelets' might appear. I'll quote wikipedia here:

A strangelet is a hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. Its size would be a minimum of a few femtometers across (with the mass of a light nucleus).

...

If the strange matter hypothesis is correct and a strangelet comes in contact with a lump of ordinary matter such as Earth, it could convert the ordinary matter to strange matter.[12][13] This "ice-nine" disaster scenario is as follows: one strangelet hits a nucleus, catalyzing its immediate conversion to strange matter. This liberates energy, producing a larger, more stable strangelet, which in turn hits another nucleus, catalyzing its conversion to strange matter. In the end, all the nuclei of all the atoms of Earth are converted, and Earth is reduced to a hot, large lump of strange matter.Both

[trailingvortex]

Also, both would be a mercifully swift death. So fast you (or indeed the world) wouldn't even notice it.

[praxia]

so what are the odds of this again? and just what is the goal of this thing?