March 19, 2008

Flipping particle could explain missing antimatter - In its early days, the cosmos was apparently a cauldron of radiation & equal amounts of matter and antimatter. As it cooled, all the antimatter supposedly was annihilated in collisions with matter - but for some reason the proportions ended up lopsided, allowing some of the matter to form the elements, stars and galaxies we see today. The precise reason for this is unknown to physics, perhaps until now.

The real proof could come later this year when the Large Hadron Collider switches on at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland to finally accidentally cause a rip in the space-time continuum, swallowing everything on Earth and ultimately destroying the universe itself. B-sub-s meson @ Wikipedia. Observation of Bs-Bsbar Oscillations. Press release: Fermilab's CDF scientists make it official: They have discovered the quick-change behavior of the B-sub-s meson, which switches between matter and antimatter 3 trillion times a second.

posted by Hank Mabuse 16 years ago
  • "The real proof could come later this year when the Large Hadron Collider switches on at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland to finally accidentally cause a rip in the space-time continuum, swallowing everything on Earth and ultimately destroying the universe itself." Let me know when I can start running up my MasterCard bill KTHXBY.
  • This Freemason, it vibrates? ...it would be possible to create micro black holes at the LHC at a rate on the order of one per second. According to the standard calculations these are harmless because they would quickly decay by Hawking radiation. The concern is that Hawking radiation (which is still debated) is not yet an experimentally-tested, or naturally observed phenomenon, and so micro black holes might not decay as rapidly as calculated, thereby accumulating inside the earth and 'devouring' it. ...Professor Frank Close (Professor of Physics at Oxford University, England) has stated, with regards to (dangerous) strangelets being created in a particle accelerator, and destroying the earth, that the 'chance of this happening is like you winning the major prize on the lottery 3 weeks in succession; the problem is that people believe it is possible to win the lottery 3 weeks in succession'. Good stuff! Good stuff! Capt, drinks are on you this time?? Yes!
  • Clarke's first law: When a distinguished scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  • Bloody scientists and their flippin' particles... You damn scientists get off my fourth dimension!!
  • I, er, like mittens. And pudding.
  • Isn't CERN about to chase Higg's Boson? There's a lot of chatter about multi dimensional (parallel) universe stuff as well. Any word on the subj' Hank?
  • Vacillating between matter and antimatter three trillion times per second, eh? The B-sub-s changes faster than an online resume. Yeah, but we can flap the flip of an xml switch and repurpose ourselves too, at Mhz speed, right up until the whole universe of HR management slides into that good, black hole...
  • And I thought I tended to vacillate!
  • Freakin' fence-sitting particles!
  • Fence sitting mugwump-like figures, almost. As they go cyclotronic.
  • Sigh... another report putting sensationalism before accuracy. Sorry, pet peeve of mine ... Ph.D. thesis from years ago was tangentially related to the topic covered by the New Scientist article.
  • I thought the collider was supposed to start colliding today. Their clock has tagged on another month. Anyone know why?
  • Try to remember The Tenth of September - You woke a human And died an ember... Try to remember The Tenth of September - You found what lies in The event horizon. Try to remember (As if you'd remember) A black hole... A black hole... A black hole.
  • I lubs me some learnin' for learnin's sake.