Thursday, August 21, 2008

Black holes Goes Micro, Cern's LHC Starts Up September 10


In celebration of Cern's Large Hadron Collider, (LHC), going live September 10, 2008 Black holes is going micro, that's right microscopic. I've always been fascinated with the microscopic world and so every once in a while I am going to post some micro images with the help of the Celestron LCD digital microscope.

The above image is what my meteorite that my wife bought me for Christmas looks like under a microscope at 160X magnification, notice the pitting caused by the meteor's travel at more then 30,000 MPH through our atmosphere, if you were to look at it normally it looks and feels very smooth, not so, it's amazing what stuff looks like magnified under a microscope, what's cool is you are looking at a remnant of the building blocks of our solar system, some 4.5 billion years ago.


Mark your calenders September 10 2008, that's the date when they flick a switch, or many, probably many, to send particle beams of protons or heavy ions , called hadrons around a 27 km circular tunnel in opposing directions and then guide the beams to collide into each other.

I know what you're thinking, why would they want to do something like that. Well by smashing particles into each other at such high energies they hope to break down the proton into even more smaller indivisible fundamental particles known to humankind, in essence re-creating the conditions that were present less then a billionth of a second after the big bang.

Have you ever starting reading a book , lets just say for argument sake at page 20?, doesn't work, you have no idea what's going on, nothing makes sense, crap, I start at page 2 I'm screwed, well that's where we started, page 20 in the theory of life book, a lot of things don't make sense, dark energy, dark matter, black holes, we have to get to page 1, the Large Hadron Collider promises to take us there, to page 1 and in doing so will give us the proper background as to why things work the way they do, to understand the big stuff like you, me, and the Universe you have to know how the little stuff works, understand why things are the way they are so as to be able to go forward, build a better mouse trap, to figure out a lot of the crazy stuff that's happening, like are there really more dimensions? what is dark energy? we know there are such things as black holes, or do we, there is no irrefutable proof they exists, they figure they can once and for all prove their existence by creating one every second, mind you it will be a real small one and is supposed to evaporate before it sucks us and the Earth in it, due to a theory called Hawking Radiation. Guess we'll find out September 10.

By understanding how something works puts us one baby step closer to harnessing it's power, "Beam me up Scotty" may one day actually happen.

I like to leave you now with another microscopic image of, well I don't know what it is , what ever it is it was hitching a ride on a rock the size of a pin head, it is at 400x, I like to call it Alien guy with a tail holding a laser gun.

43 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog about space!

S-V-H said...

It really looks like a creature out of space, Bob! Microscopic photography is a very interesting media and the prints are amazing. I did once 2 semester study of that, back in the 90's.

Great post again!

Sherer said...

Bob,

Very frightening post my friend! I am acutally really excited about the results of Sept. 10th and beyond, what an amazing tool. Hopefully they were right about that evaporation thing. Also the alien with a gun was pretty cool. Maybe were not looking small enough for extra terestrials.

Jesse

Anonymous said...

awesome post Bob, and thank you for the info :-) :)Loved the micro photo of yours too. And i'll definitely mark my calendar as I am very interested in how everything started - from page 1.
It's only day after my BD so it wnt be difficult to remember too.
What according tome is missing in science is the addition of magic to it. Metaphysics does recognize it more than other sciences that there is more, much more thanwhat we think is IT and meets the eye.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how long after Sept. 10th it will be before all the data is interpreted? I know some are worried about the machine getting out of control or something and the earth being swallowed up b a man made black hole. Sounds like science fiction to me. I hope!

Swubird said...

Bob:

That's a nasty looking rock all right. I would never have guessed it to be a meteorite.

Your post was very interesting, and thanks for putting all of that heavy duty scientific stuff in layman's terms so that it's a little more understandable. I am so glad that money is being put into this kind of high-brow stuff. But looking back to t plus one billionth of a second is getting very close to the fire. I just hope we don't get burned in the process.

Happy stargazing old buddy, and thanks for the double comment.

Anonymous said...

Bob, you going micro is a macro change to your blog :) It will be exciting to know what happens to those protons. Since I am lazy, I'll just keep an eye on your blog for updates :)

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks welles and thanks for dropping by.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Susanne, cool you did a study of microscopic photography.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Hey Jesse, lol didn't mean the post to be all that frightening, not to worry about the black holes, most people don't know that similar nano black holes are created daily by cosmic rays bombarding the Earth's atmosphere at even higher energies then the LHC produces, they evaporate.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Tatiana, Happy birthday now if a forget to wish you one on the 9th,lol.

Tatiana,good point, the LHC may turn what we once thought as magic into science it's magic right now because we don't understand it.

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, hey Will I was just watching a show called " Six Billion Dollar Experiment" one of the Professors in charge of the LHC actually said and I quote him "These black holes actually evaporate as soon as they're produced, so it's almost impossible that these black holes can devour the experiment or Geneva or the Earth", notice the "almost impossible" part,lol.

They figure there will be upwards to 800,000,000 collisions a second, and even though only a fraction of them will be of any interest it will still take quite awhile I would think to get some hard results, the computer systems network they have developed to send the data to all the various universities for study is in itself quite remarkable to say the least, we shall see.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks swubird, we shall see, I figure we are on the edge of some of the most important discoveries ever made by humankind.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Lol priyank, no worries, I'll be on top of it for you.\m/\m/

Anonymous said...

Bravo Bob, bravo! This is what I like to see. Innovation. Microscopic images are truly fascinating and your foray into this field has not dissappointed. Ummm, what are you doing introducing new species on our planet?

~JD

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, thanks JD, amazing what you can find in the microscopic world, who knew about micro aliens before this blog? I have all kinds of things planned for the micro world.\m/\m/

Max-e said...

Hi Bob, ben enjoying your earlier posts and photos of the Milky Way. My dream is still to see the aurora.
Your macro picture of the meteorite is very interesting. I must one day write about two incrdible meteorite experiences I have witnessed. The one was a fireball that traveled right across the sky from horizon to horizon, back in 1970 at sunset. The second was one was in 1973, when I was in the army on guard duty. This one lit up the night like an arc lamp and was followed by a sonic rumble. Some buddies said the felt it hit earth near where they were on patrol, about 50kms away. It is probably under the Cabora Basa dam in Mocambique now.

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks max-e, very cool that you had those experiences with the meteor sightings, the auroras are unbelievable to view in person, I consider myself lucky to have witnessed some great ones this year, hopefully you will one day see them.\m/\m/

Anonymous said...

Amazing image, great creative processing. Outstanding composition.

Anonymous said...

Time is short Bob.

The human consciousness awakes on the 10th Sept.

Bring on the branes (other Universes)

We welcome all beings.

Don said...

Maybe aliens are microscopic! I like how you help us non-techies able to read and understand. Your photos are phab!!

MYM said...

OMG I saw a documentary on this a while back. I was wondering when the date was. I think we'll all be gone on the 11th won't we? Huh? ;)

Bob Johnson said...

Wow thanks John, appreciate the great feedback.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks for dropping by solreka, great things are about to happen, can hardly wait, like Christmas for me,lol\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Don, glad you think the photos are phab!\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

No chance, well as they say in the industry, almost no chance, geez everybody knows the end of the world is in 2012,lol. I am not worried in the least about the Black holes, we are on the edge of great discoveries all thanks to the LHC.\m/\m/

Max Coutinho said...

Hello Lord of the Astropics!

It is amazing to the see these microscopic images (although my favourite is the one where the Alien is holding the laser gun lol)! Can you imagine if humans had such an eye sight?

Oh my...they are really on the roll to find out how to beam us around, eh? Does this mean that soon we will have light-speed aircrafts? Now that would be awesome!! I detest long travelling hours *nodding*.

Bob, great post as always! :D

I wish you a fantastic week ahead, my friend :D!

Cheers

Shirley Twofeathers said...

I too love the little alien dude... I'm also curious to see what will happen when they start using the collider... and I'm glad that you will keep us informed. Lots of people are really worried about it - but I figure that if they manage to turn the earth into a black hole - well at least I won't have financial problems anymore!! LOL!!

Anonymous said...

I like your alien guy. He is pretty cool and he travels really cheap! What a catch! I will be back to see what they find out after September 10th. I can't wait to find out the rest of the story.

Love and Blessings,
AngelBaby

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks max, yeah, the alien guy is very cool, I think all kinds of new and better technologies will be the result of the LHC. Lol, I hate air travel period, rather be beamed around,lol.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, that's the way to look at it, no more bills, hey If we are going to go, might as well be sucked into a black hole, very cool, who knows maybe the grass is greener on the other side,lol.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks angelbaby, glad you like the alien guy, I'll keep you posted on the ins and outs of the collider.\m/\m/

Ruth said...

It's fascinating stuff. You know we have the National Superconducting Cyclotron Lab here at MSU, and they just had a piece from the CERN courier. It talks about the stop-start approach to rare isotope beams:

"A better technical approach is to stop the beams, extract them and then reaccelerate them or use them at low energies," writes Don Monroe in a feature for the July/August CERN Courier, describing the various ways to create low-energy beams for rare isotope research. "This is the path that MSU has opted for in upgrading its NSCL facility."

"To provide isotope beams with lower and more tightly distributed energies, it will combine new and established technology to stop the beams, increase the charge on the ions and then reaccelerate them. The resulting beams will enable users at NSCL to explore the excitations of rare isotopes – by either nucleon transfer or Coulomb excitation – to reveal their internal structure."

Ruth said...

Coincidentally (I meant to say in that last comment) I was planning to go over to the Cyclotron later today to photograph a mural by a Brazilian artist who contacted me, and whom I'm going to post about . . .

kml said...

I can tell we are going to be getting some very interesting photos of micros! Can't wait - macro photog is my favorite and this is even better!

Marvin said...

It's the end of the world as we know it.... and I feel fine.... LOL!

Nice microscope pix. You are SO talented.

Bob Johnson said...

Okay Ruth I am sooo impressed, I wasn't aware of that,I was just over at the NSCL website to read about it, it is very cool.

We here in Saskatoon have the Canadian Light Source Synchrotron. Actually had a guest speaker about its function at one of our RASC meetings, very cool.

Hey would you like to do a guest post here on black holes, about the research being done there and maybe sneak some of your viewpoints about the LHC in I can get you lots of 3D glasses as payment. \m/\m/\m/\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Thanks Kathy, I think the micro world is very interesting, the microscapes are unbelievably cool.\m/\m/

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, and thanks marvin, and you have such excellent taste in music.\m/\m/

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Greetings Bob!
I got your point! We still have lots of research left in order to understand the universe in which we live. The Large Hadron Collider's a fantastic machine that's capable of creating micro black holes that won't destroy our planet but will show us some answers to many doubts we have had since ever

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