Thursday, September 11, 2008

A mini Big Bang

So, they recently fired up the Big Bang Machine. "What is a Big Bang machine and why should I care?" you may be asking.

Well, the Big Bang Machine is a 6.4 billion Euro monstrosity that will hopefully recreate the conditions that began the universe. They're going to collide some particles, protons and then some stuff will happen, Big Bang-like stuff (or so they assume) and if they observe a particular particle called a Higg's Bozon, then they will know their theories about "the beginning" of the universe were correct. If they don't observe this particle then they were wrong about some things. And like good scientists they would be happy to be surprised. It means scientists will have more stuff to study. You should watch some of these videos they're interesting.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=7240446276656005287&ei=EHHJSLrTE4G2rQKwx9XJAg&q=the+big+bang+machine&vt=lf&hl=en

Why should you care? Well, with a food crisis going on in the world and the dissapearance of fossil fuels and the increase of certain diseases, people are desperate to know how the universe began. One day we'll be able to tell a starving child dying of AIDS that everything that exists came about as the result of a big explosion called the Big Bang. Certainly the child won't understand the details of what this all means. In fact, his or her most pressing question might be, "Can I PLEASE have a sandwhich?" But... who cares? As long as scientists know some stuff.

I love how knowing more about the big bang does absolutely nothing practical for me or anyone, whatsoever. I guess it's nice to know these things but that's a lot of money and there are lots of problems in the world these days. Where are the big advances in Biology and Agriculture? When is the last time someone has spent that kind of money trying to cure a disease? Of course, when we run out of food and fossil fuels, and our atmosphere is so dense with pollution we won't be able to see the sun, maybe these people can make a new universe for us to live in.

All sarcasm aside, I love physics and stuff. I just don't think this experiment is worth the expense, whatever the outcome. I mean, there's such a thing as priorities. What good that money could have done for people who are really in need. Luckily for physicists, no one has or ever will ask me for permission to build a Big Bang Machine.

That being said there are a small group of people out there who believe that the Big Bang Machine could create black holes and eventually destroy the earth. That's one way to end human suffering.

10 comments:

Vrej said...

I think that whatever discoveries come of it cannot even be imagined by us. We're thinking that nothing worthwhile will come out of this but the fact is some unfathomable discovery might come about.

And it's like like an opportunity cost situation. It's not like if they didn't build this, the money would have fed people or whatever. Hell, even studying science for its own sake is worth it just to learn more about these nutty things. Food crisis and loss of fossil fuels is baloney, anyway. Don't believe it.

Masta said...

Opportunity cost? All you're saying is, "No one would have speant the money on starving kids anyway!" No kidding! That's what's so sad. Not that they spent 6.4 billion on this thing, but that they have many times more than that and only a comparatively small amount will be spent meeting a human need. That our scientific curiosity is more developped than human compassion that's what's sad.

You're right to say that food crisis and fossil fuel loss is baloney. Why? Because however true or misguided our perceived lack of these things is, the rich will still have plenty of both, with money left over to muse about the origins of the universe and play video games even profit from the 'baloney', while the poor people will have to decide between driving a car and having supper. Or choose between starving or watching their kids starve. If we withdraw ourselves from our perception of economics, yeah, there is no crisis, there should be enough of everything for everyone. But still, 20% of the world indulges in 80% of its wealth? 80% of the world doesn't even get their basic needs met. Higg's Boson... wonderful! What is Higgs? Can I eat Higgs? Can it pay my rent?

I'm being kind of rhetorical I guess. I mean, the same thing could be said about spending money to make expensive movies, or almost any industry. You could probably eradicate malaria in a whole bunch of countries, fee entire villages. Instead their going to slam protons together really fast looking for some particle they've just assumed existed anyway. Then after they reprint a bunch of physics text books and make students pay for the newest edition for that extra paragraph, then what? Nothing, the world will be exactly the same. I just feel I should bring it up since Bono probably doesn't read my blog.

Unknown said...

I agree with Vrej, Viagra was discovered while trying to find a cure to heart disease.

Masta said...

If they do find a way to help old people make love using this 10 billion dollar machine, I'll eat my words. Until then... I'm just in awe at how much disposable money we have.

Unknown said...

Yup, I suppose we have a lot of disposable income, but that's the way the economy here works. You have to spend to make it go round.

Throwing money at a problem like world hunger isn't the best solution in my opinion. It only solves a temporary problem. Spoon feeding them will not help their autonomy it will simply build a dependency. It might seem like you're helping them but in my opinion, you're only worsening their situation because their chance of being autonomous in the future only decreases as their dependency grows. Education is the key, but it takes time, nothing happens overnight.

"Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime"

Masta said...

Well, what organizations like world vision do is they give these people money to start businesses, start little farms, give them clean water. It's not a matter of just buying them food, but developping agriculture for small communities. Of course education is important, but it takes money to educate people, children and adults. And what does education mean if these people are plagued with disease and don't even have clean water? You have to start somewhere. We're talking about people who have absolutely nothing.

Take something like malaria. My understanding is that is pretty cheap to cure and I think I even heard somewhere that they could actually eradicate malaria but people just don't want to spend money on it. Money's good stuff man. You can meet any need with money, food, education, health, business, big bang machines, getting ladies...everything takes MONEY! If it wasn't important we wouldn't make so many excuses to hold onto it.

Unknown said...

Not entirely true. Happiness cannot be acquired with money.

Personally, I think World Vision is full of shit, if even 1% of the money they get actually goes somewhere useful I'll be impressed.

Governments have been throwing money into these causes for many years now with little or no results. The reason for that being that the money is given to wrong people who are either corrupt or lack the competencies to be able to spend it wisely.

Masta said...

I'm sure if I was cured of malaria I'd be happy for at least a little while.

I can't say whether or not charitable organizations are corrupt, but it sounds like a ridiculous conspiracy theory to me. World Vision in particular is supposedly very transparent and are audited regularly just like anyone else. You can go to their website and see how there money is being spent. Could they be lying? Anything is possible but I don't think so. It sounds more like a convenient excuse for people not to give to charity. "Oh, all charities are corrupt and incompetent anyway so why bother giving?"

If the results these organizations get seems inadequate, I wouldn't blame corruption. Blame the fact that maybe people aren't very charitable and simply don't care. According to World Vision's reports they got 55 million dollars last year. To put things into perspective, the Big Bang machine cost about 181 times that amount to build! In other words, in 2 centuries, world vision probably wouldn't raise the same amount of money to provide relief and medical care to people as these physicists have raised to possibly find a Higg's Boson and then pat each other on the back because they were right about some unfathomable aspect of the universe, something most people on the planet, including some of the most educated people in the scientific community will not even understand. That doesn't strike you as excessive for one experiment with no immediately obvious social value?

Now what you're saying is that 99% of that charity money, a whopping 54 million dollars, is basically stolen by some corrupt charity boogie man or somehow dissapears because of incompetence and no one notices or complains. I highly doubt it.

This is a link to where the money world vision uses supposedly goes to.

http://www.worldvision.co.nz/aboutwvnz/where_your_money_goes.asp

I believe they do good work. You should go to their site it's cool. When you give, you have the option of specifying what you would like your money to be spent on livestock or equipment, business loans... Even if world vision were a waste as you say, All I'm saying is, with all that money kicking around we SHOULD somehow find a way to help some people somewhere. If it can be spent on that machine, it can be spent on people, world vision or not. It is good to help the poor.

Unknown said...

I surrender. Let's help.

My point was that there is money wasted all around us. That big bang thing is just one of many things. Where do you draw the line?

Masta said...

I agree with you. It's just an observation. Of course money is wasted all over. But imagine the kind of incredible changes that 10 billion dollars could have made in the world.

I don't know where to draw the line. Maybe at 1 billion dollars? Or say, for every dollar spent on entertainment or bizarre science projects, 1 dollars has to be given to the poor.