LHC RAP

September 15th, 2008 omo

From the heart of the L. H. C.

AlpineKat bring phat rhymes to you in your seat!

It’s no schoolhouse rock, no miss.

Caz physics ain’t taught in 8th grade like this:

And here’s the source.

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Trickle-down Technology via Atom Smashers

September 8th, 2008 omo

Back when I was in high school I wrote a term paper on Reagan’s Cold War-era Star Wars program. The strategic defense initiative (LOL where’s NOD) was mostly lofty dreams and big waste of money, but as a result of all that research we did get some tangential benefits.

Much of the same can be said of these huge investment in physics. The oft-quoted story is that CERN did give birth to the modern world wide web, and that is what some are looking forward to when the Large Hadron Collider goes online in a couple days.

If one were to nitpick a difference between the LHC and Star Wars, it would be that what is used to cope with the LHC and its application is much more down to earth. Scientists primarily are still concerned with things that any businessperson would be concerned with–distribution and analysis of data. Sure, few anyone would care to smash fundamental particles in huge, cross-national underground labs, but that is just a part of the bigger picture.

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The Final Countdown

June 11th, 2008 omo

26 days and counting!

The Large Hadron Collider will be operational, hopefully rushing in a new era in physics. And all the doomsday sayers are doing us a favor by giving the public a reason to pay attention to this milestone in the history of science, or potentially.

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Pluto Is Not a Planet

March 3rd, 2008 omo

But it is still a cool nickname to use on IRC, Brian.

Not that you’d read this blog, but it just got me to think: it’s one thing if we’re talking about the middle ages, where the population and the Church dictated scientific advances and spread of knowledge to the masses.

But people’s unhealthy attachment of Pluto being the status of a planet?

1. Charon (Pluto’s dominant “moon”) and Pluto actually forms a dwarf planet system by the new IAU definition of dwarf planet. The barycenter (fancy pants word for center of mass) is located outside of Pluto’s diameter. In other words, both Pluto and Charon are dwarf planets technically, and neither orbits each other–both orbits some empty space located just outside of Pluto’s reach.

2. Pluto’s wonky orbit and the discovery of Charon in the 1940s have already long put Pluto in doubt as a “true” planet. There was some debacle in the 70s and 80s about Pluto being actually a moon of Uranus, and that hasn’t really been put to rest yet. The dwarf planet concept sorts of put that debate to an end though.

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Physics Brain Teaser

January 30th, 2008 omo

And thus the quote:

Here’s the original problem essentially as it was posed to us: “A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?”

What do you think?

I know what will happen. If you entertain the two possible choices and remain undecided, may I remind you that a pound of feathers weight as much as a pound of bricks, and one plus one is still equal to two. But fret not, because the question is poorly worded and is probably designed so. It also is necessary to understand how a typical airplane function during takeoff, as it is not like a car.

Today’s Mythbuster will explore this question experimentally, and I hope they reach the right theoretical result.

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