Day: September 25, 2006

I read the mini-bang machine article (see Greg’s post below), and here’s my thoughts:

While science (this truly mind-boggling kind in particular), does interest, amaze and excite me, it also frightens me.  How much fiddling about can we do before we get burned?  I’m not referring to the possibility of the apocolypse mentioned in the article – nor am I thinking of fire and brimstone being hurled down upon us by an irritated God/Creator/Almighty (no, not even that He Who Is Called “I Am” bloke) – at least not literally.  I just wonder if there are things we shouldn’t leave well enough alone.  I acknowledge the fact that the lovely folks performing these incredible experiments are much brighter than myself, but maybe we’re supposed to have limits?  Its like we’re poking a giant in the eye – one day he’ll wake up in pain and pissed off, and simply stomp out the source of his discomfort.  And should we be messing about with “new” universes when we can’t even seem to live peacefully and healthily in our own?  I mean, really, we haven’t even been able to manage our own little blue planet.

I dunno.

The article reminds me of something… and ha! I’ve just remembered it.  Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.  A trilogy of books, categorized, I suppose as children’s lit (though it does get pretty heavy), dealing with the idea of multiple universes and dark matter (dark material), criticisms of religion, etc.  A quote from the Wikipedia article:

“The three major literary influences on His Dark Materials acknowledged by Pullman himself are the essay On the Marionette Theatre by Heinrich von Kleist, the works of William Blake, and, most importantly, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, from which the trilogy derives its title as well as many of its basic ideas. Pullman’s stated intention was to invert Milton’s story of a war between heaven and hell. In his introduction, he adapts Blake’s line to quip that he (Pullman) “is of the Devil’s party and does know it.” The novels also draw heavily on gnostic ideas, and His Dark Materials has been a subject of controversy, especially with certain Christian groups.”

Anyhow, the books are very good, read them.  Apparently New Line is adapting them for film.

Wow, I’m famished.  In search of dinner I shall go.   

I believe I have mentioned this in passing previously to Holly, but this is too crazy-awesome to not write about. Perhaps she will attempt to mock this post much like the last. Ahem.

As of next year, it seems as though a group is planning to undertake “one of the most ambitious experiments in history“, in which “a 27km-long circular particle accelerator … will smash protons into one another at unimaginable speeds trying to replicate in miniature the events of the Big Bang.”

Some tidbits for the lazy:

• the “fundamental goal of the massive machine is to answer the basic but crucial question of how matter was created at the birth of the universe“
• there is “something called dark energy” that “makes up about 70 per cent of the energy in the universe, but … we have absolutely no idea what it is”
  
• the machine itself “will be turned on next year and run for at least a decade and probably 20 years and the first results – if the machine behaves itself – should start coming out within a year“
• “the machine will create tiny black holes that evaporate and possibly even find particles that offer evidence that the three dimensions known to mankind are just a fraction of those that exist“
• “It could be that there is a whole new universe a millimetre away from our heads but at right-angles to the three dimensions that are here“
• “For the first time in many decades we have built a machine that exceeds our powers of prediction“
• “the possibility of accidentally destroying the planet as extremely low“ with a probability “at the level of 10 to the minus 40“

Well, with that being said, you’re really doing yourself a disservice by not reading the entire article. Extremely interesting. At first glance it sounds like the crazy plot for some apocalyptic science-fiction movie/novel.

However, I’m sure that somehow this doesn’t appeal to everyone as interesting reading. Though it should. Dark matter? Dark energy? New dimensions? Simply wonderful, I say.