I know as much about physics as Einstein knew about knitting, probably less.
But it's always fascinated me in, I guess, a metaphysical sort of way, that ultimately large things (like the Big Bang) and ultimately small things (like sub-atomic particles) might be similar, related, co-structured, usw.
So I was fascinated by the recent news of the turning on of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) at CERN in Switzerland.
In fact, last night there were two TV progs on this at the same time on different channels.
Left a few gaps in my understanding.
So I decided to do a few web searches this morning to find out more.
I think I get the point now and, just about, why it has to stay running for 15 years and has to cost $16 billion.
It's to try to find the ultimate (and missing) details of how energy in the form of known sub-atomic particles can become "heavy" (have mass) and so form matter.
The missing stuff is called the Higgs field and one young turk from Manchester described it as being "like treacle".
So, some particles, he said, "talk" to the Higgs field, and get slowed down in doing so; while others (photons) don't and so sprint along at the speed of light.
The assumption is that this Higgs field is, itself, particulate and made up of (again yet-to-be-empirically discovered) thingys called the Higgs Boson.
If the LHC works, this little guy is expected to make an appearance in the form of a wavy line on a very large and expensive photographic plate: or, more likely, as a bunch of numbers in a very expensive computer attached thereunto.
The 16 Billion Dollar Mr Squiggle?
Sunday in the Quark Household
Mrs Quark: What kept you? I was expecting you home for dinner hours ago.
Mr Quark: Just stopped for a chat along the way in Higgs's field. You know how difficult it is to get out of a field full of treacle.
Mrs Quark: Did he have much to say?
Mr Quark: Not really, he's very particulate about who he'll talk to.
Mrs Quark: What a waste of time. Hurry up and eat, or we'll be late for Mass.
(But what if the field ain't particulate and made up in some hitherto-unknown way?)
Meanwhile back in another version of the real world:
Some nutcases are worried that a by-product of colliding sub-atomic particles (hadrons) at close to the speed of light will be a collection of black holes that will eat the LHC, CERN, Switzerland, the Earth, our own dear familiar spiral galaxy and a whole bunch of others in the vicinity.
For my humble part, the only really disturbing thing was that my first Google search turned up this:
[Click image to enlarge]I leave the rest to my faithful readers' imaginations.
Sledge the Plank
