Bird attempts to sabotage resonance cascade; bread has unforseen consequences

[Ecks Dee]

Linky. (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/bread-loving-bird-shuts-down-lhc)

I'm feeling more and more sorry for CERN every day. It's as if they've actually built some sort of giant machine to demonstrate Murphy's Law.

That said, that bird may have saved the world from some sort of 2012/combine/black hole/eye of terror based apocalypse.

[Zanaril]

My prediction; problems will keep pushing the starting date back until some time in late 2012.

[Ecks Dee]

As late as December, you think?

[Zanaril]

As late as December, you think?

Always a possibility...

[madtinker]

The more complicated something is, the more prone it is to failure. Considering that engineers learn best from failures, and this hasn't been done (at least not on this scale), it seems reasonable to me that they would have this many problems. They'll work teh bugs out eventually.

[lobablob]

The worst part is that all the stupid theories about time travel sabotage are going to be seen as more plausible because of this...

[Ecks Dee]

The worst part is that all the stupid theories about time travel sabotage are going to be seen as more plausible because of this...
hurr durr more hl2 references
The right bird in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

[Telonius]

The universe just doesn't want it to be built (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?_r=2).


A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

EDIT: You know, I read this before, but this part never jumped out at me before...


Dr. Nielsen and Dr. Ninomiya have proposed a kind of test: that CERN engage in a game of chance, a “card-drawing” exercise using perhaps a random-number generator, in order to discern bad luck from the future. If the outcome was sufficiently unlikely, say drawing the one spade in a deck with 100 million hearts, the machine would either not run at all, or only at low energies unlikely to find the Higgs.

If this thing pans out, we might actually have built an Improbability Drive!

[lobablob]

I really hate that time travel theory, it vaguely fits the pattern but offers no proof to suggest it above countless other unlikely explanations and it isn't a falsifiable theory. It's not science. It's not even reasonable or logical.

[Telonius]

It is falsifiable - you could falsify it by isolating the Higgs boson. If you can't actually do that, the hypothesis might be correct.

[BRC]

Geeze, first they have to fight off a Headcrab attack (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171471), and now this! Will it never end!

[Stormthorn]

It is falsifiable - you could falsify it by isolating the Higgs boson. If you can't actually do that, the hypothesis might be correct.

We must risk the destruction of the world to prove that no one is trying to stop us form destroying the world.

Or alternativly, god really is trying to stop us, and we still isolate the boson, thus proving that we are just that awesome. Unless it was a person from the future trying to stop us, then he will, in an ironic twist of fate, provide the very key to success.

[Phase]

I have my crowbar at the ready, just in case.

[Gamerlord]

That bird is obviously a ninja who can see the future.

[Solaris]

That bird is obviously a ninja who can see the future.

No, the bird is obviously a victim. (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/bread-loving-bird-shuts-down-lhc#comment-46330)

I laughed when I read that one. Does that make me a bad person?

[EleventhHour]

I have my crowbar at the ready, just in case.

I'll go get Dog.

[Tirian]

I'm not surprised. That bird used to bullseye womp rats with a bagel back home.

Seriously, this is a large step forward for humanity. It used to be that we'd have to build a space station to get this sort of cost and schedule overruns for a monumentally over-engineered but amusingly error-prone apparatus that will keep scientists and engineers employed and entertained for a generation without ever delivering the scientific results it promised. When I was a boy growing up dreaming of Skylab and Mir, I never dreamed we'd be able to achieve such ineptness on Earth itself.

[thubby]

how does an international team of super scientists manage to build such an enormous thing, and overlook the fact that it would be exposed to these critter?

[Telonius]

No, the bird is obviously a victim. (http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2009-11/bread-loving-bird-shuts-down-lhc#comment-46330)

I laughed when I read that one. Does that make me a bad person?

No, but a few posts above it was obviously one of ours.


Was it a European swallow, or an African swallow?

EDIT:

"how does an international team of super scientists manage to build such an enormous thing, and overlook the fact that it would be exposed to these critter?"

I work for a science journal. Trust me, something like that doesn't surprise me one bit. :smallbiggrin:

[thubby]

I work for a science journal. Trust me, something like that doesn't surprise me one bit. :smallbiggrin:

I find it all the more annoying that I'm not surprised either. it means we know we have these kinds of development problems but aren't fixing it.