Somewhat Useful Facts Thread

[Senator]

Apart from destroying the world (but not really), other uses for CERN are going to be:

Making quark?gluon plasma, which is how the universe looked a bit after the Big Bang, in order to errr, see what happens. Incidentially making that requires temperatures 100000 times hotter than the heart of the Sun.

Finding the damn Higgs boson.

Since they are up to it, find any other particles that might pop up and make up dark matter.

Confirming or leaving in tears a couple of theories concerning how many dimensions the universe has. Useful in a "no matter what it is, it is not that way" kind of way in order to advance cosmology.

Try to figure out why we are made of matter and not antimatter. (technically according to the current model there should have been equal amounts of both around)

[Senator]

Since its a bit current, have some sexy photos from LHC:













( http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/the_large_hadron_collider.html )

[Senator]

kewl

[MLeo]

Very.


But I think some slightly more complex solution might be nice, say, 4 degrees of freedom? (Ie. the ability to easily go sideways and things like that) All fluently moving. Maybe even using those new artificial musles (sp)? It would have to be AI/Computer controlled.

[JerichoKru]

kewl

Wild Wild West all over again...

[Senator]

That's what happens when the safety break, doesn't safely break.

[captain_obvious]

That's what happens when the safety break, doesn't safely break.

I think that may count as "catastrophic chassis failure"

[JimmyB76]

the latest statistics show that Rhode Island has the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the entire US, 2nd only to Michigan, at 8.5%...  RI has a population of just over one million (with a land area size of only 1,045 square miles)

i still hate my job tho...

[Mustang]

That's what happens when the safety break, doesn't safely break.

That is absolutely in-fucking-credible. I saw that on the failblog the other day and my jaw dropped. I would pay huge money to see that in person once.

From a safe distance.

[Senator]

[Senator]

Well, somebody had to do it:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4799369.ece

Japan is hosting an international conference in November to draw up a timetable for the machine.

[ECGadget]

If Britain was the size of america and didn't have masses on sparely populated areas, it's population would be minimum 12 times the size of america's

[limey BSc.]

Do you mean that the population density of Britain is 12x that of the US?

[JimmyB76]

How George W. Bush Dodged The Draft

In September 1999, Ben Barnes, a former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, testified under oath that in 1968 he asked the head of the Texas Air National Guard to give Bush a place on a pilot-training program, automatically excusing him from the draft.  In his deposition, Barnes said he had been asked to intervene by Bush family friend Sidney Adger.

Dubya scored only 25 percent in his pilot aptitude test, the lowest acceptable grade.  On his application form, he listed his "background qualifications" as "none".  Competition for the few openings in the National Guard was intense, there was a waiting list of 100,000 nationally, yet Bush won a pilot's slot in the Texas Air National Guard.  Nonetheless, in September of 1999, Dubya told the Dallas Morning News, "I can just tell you, I don't believe I received special treatment."

Then why, in 1997, did then-governor Bush award a no-bid contract for operating the Texas lottery to a Rhode Island corporation called GTech, whose lobbyist was Ben Barnes?


_{119 Days Left!}

[ECGadget]

Do you mean that the population density of Britain is 12x that of the US?

yes and more 

The longest ever war was the 100yr war between Britain and france... It was actually 112 years!
The shortest ever was was 37 minutes, also started by britain, but I don't know against whom!

[MLeo]

Do you mean that the population density of Britain is 12x that of the US?

yes and more 

The longest ever war was the 100yr war between Britain and france... It was actually 112 years!
The shortest ever was was 37 minutes, also started by britain, but I don't know against whom!

I tought there was some county that "forgot" to sign a peace treaty with Russia untill recently or something like that, wouldn't that not be the longest war?

I also believe they (the people from that country) said "Now the people of Russia can sleep peacefully" or something like that.

[limey BSc.]

I beleive that was between a town near the Scottish border that and Germany over WW2. They were seperate in the declaration of war, but omitted from the peace treaty until recently. I could be wrong though :lol

[ECGadget]

yeah there is... I think it is Falkirk!

Did you know that the English Chanel is the busiest Waterway in the world, with over 1000 vessels in it at any one time... day or night!

[Senator]

Manned launch by China today.

[Senator]

Speaking of space, here is a "planet" that has been largely ignored, yet it is potentially one of the best targets for colonization in the Solar System after Mars:



Ganymede.

In case you wonder, where the hell is Ganymede, the answer is that it is actually a satellite/moon of Jupiter. It's size however is quite respectable.

For comparison:

Diameter of Mars: 6,792 km
Diameter of Ganymede: 5,262.4 km
Diameter of Mercury (which is considered a planet): 4,878 km

In other words, that's practically a small Mars in orbit around Jupiter. Unlike Mars, it actually possess a magnetosphere and, ironically, an almost pure oxygen atmosphere (No, don't even think about it, too thin, too cold).