I'm not sure how I'm going to do at this blog thing. I want this to be a fun project for me and for any participants. My challenge is that I'm an engineer and have exactly zero skills in capturing an audience. I will try to be creative, spontaneous, and sometimes controversial. I may sometimes take an opposing view (from my own), blog on politics or about the conversation I heard in the hall at work (Today I heard someone offering a customer "water, bottled water, a drink, Coke or pop." If that's the most creative an engineer can be, then I feel this blog will be short lived).
On that note, I hope I don't stem from the same cloth as many of my fellow comrads. If you haven't heard yet, CERN (yes the same CERN from "Angels and Demons", Dan Brown) has just about completed construction on it's new, 17 mile long Hadron Collider. The purpose of this collider is accelerate tiny protons to extreme speeds, where they will meet, and collide, hopefully revealing particals that are smaller than protons and electrons (quarks, or the Higgs-Boson partical).
So what is the usefulness of such a machine? They are fairly confident that they will create anti-matter and black holes. For the most part, they are certain their discoveries will not impact this generation. And they figure that any black holes they create will not have enough power to effect this universe during it's life time.
They also theorize that they may get a better insight into other dimensions. I'm not sure how entering new dimensions will make the world a better place, but I could immagine it might make travelling a little easier. Wouldn't it be cool to discover a dimension that could get you from North America to Europe just by stepping through some particle beam that sends your matter through some sort of space warp?
In the end, I think we'll discover the scientists and engineers are as sterotypical as we make them out to be. At least for this generation. That's why I hope I don't share any of the same common thread, as the Michigan State grad who rapped about CERN's new, 17 mile long, Multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM
2 comments:
#1 This blog is a good idea, and I'm excited to participate.
#2 I've seen you in a crowd, and you are so good at capturing an audience.
#3 I thought it was really funny that some people were super concerned that the CERN project would destroy the world. People were really predicting this. These people do not believe in the God I believe in. That's all I'm saying.
Speaking of that, (since they are our to discover more about the Big Bang Theory) I've wonder if its even possible for the human mind to comprehend how the universe is created. Maybe you have to be deity. So, maybe their big expensive machine is all for naught. Sad for them.
a) scientists like toys
b) scientists like expensive toys
c) the bigger and more expensive the toy is the better it is
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z) particle physicists are CRAZY!!!!
(but they're better than the nanotech ones. I had to sit through too many colloquiums on nanotech.)
You're worried about capturing an audience? *shakes head* This is coming from the guy who screamed into a mirror for his campaign speech in jr high. I don't think you have a problem with that.
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