Topic: First Collisions in the LHC!

[sam]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/11/23/first-collisions-in-the-lhc/

I have a few friends who are particularly excited, since their thesis work was on this...

[Clive]

This is very exciting news Sam.  We are going to have a deluge of discoveries. 

[Simon]

Not being funny, but will this have any actual benefit on the world?  I can't help but feel that the money might have been better spent on cancer cures, and such like. 

[sam]

Not being funny, but will this have any actual benefit on the world?  I can't help but feel that the money might have been better spent on cancer cures, and such like. 

I see your point about spending money on more obvious impact science but CERN is a great example of blue skies research. Without CERNs innovation we wouldn't be chatting here - they basically developed the world wide web... and the technology spin offs in the past are pretty huge and wide ranging... including health physics.

[Simon]

Fair comment.

[sam]

Fair comment.

I may have used that one before....

[Simon]

[Clive]

Imagine.... no Internet. 

[Simon]

True, but we used to survive without it.

[GillE]

It's a pity we can't fit a few Irish and Middle Eastern politicians into the LHC and use it to bang heads together.  That might bring the world an immediate tangible benefit.

[Simon]

That's far too sensible an idea, Gill. 

[Clive]

It's a pity we can't fit a few Irish and Middle Eastern politicians into the LHC and use it to bang heads together.  That might bring the world an immediate tangible benefit.

The flaw in your propostion is that they would all die.  Oh, wait......