All Posts Tagged With: "universe"
Physicists meeting in Vancouver study universe’s origin
Particle collider will cost about US$7.78 billion
Some of the world’s greatest minds have collided in Vancouver and agreed to build a new US$7.78-billion particle collider that will help answer some of the universe’s deepest secrets.
The physicists had until Thursday been designing two separate particle colliders, known as linear colliders.
The colliders were expected to hurl billions of electrons at positrons — their anti-particles — along kilometre-long superconducting cavities at nearly the speed of light.
Timothy Meyer of TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, said the results of those collisions would help scientists answer questions related to the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe.
But Meyer said the physicists met at TRIUMF in Vancouver and agreed to form a team to develop a new particle accelerator.
“Everyone wants this collider to go forward, and the technology or which one is which is sort of a secondary concern,” he said. “It’s like everyone is going to start rowing in the same direction.”
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Breathing the same air as Stephen-freaking-Hawking
He’s the King of All Nerds, the Overlord of Physics, and he’s coming to Waterloo
Stephen Hawking. He’s the King of All Nerds. The Overlord of Physics. The Creator of Impressive-Sounding Theories that Some of Us Pretend to Understand. He’s revolutionized our understanding of black holes and the beginning of the universe. Most impressively, he’s appeared on Family Guy.
And this summer, he’s coming to Waterloo. As in, I’ll be breathing the same air as Stephen Hawking. My puny, average-sized human brain cells will be within a 20 kilometer radius of Stephen Hawking’s mega-sized “can legitimately use the phrase ‘quantum mechanics’ in a sentence” brain cells.
Never mind being within the same city limits as Stephen Hawking. Imagine being his child? Forget science fair projects about volcanoes and bread mold. When your dad is Stephen-freaking-Hawking, science fair projects are probably more along the lines of a fully-functioning particle accelerator. Instead of helping his kids with their homework, I bet he used to just say, “Oh, forget it,” and then shoved them out of the way.
But isn’t his quest for a ‘Theory of Everything’ kind of like licking every jelly bean in the bowl, just so your younger brothers can’t eat any? I mean, who does this guy think he is, anyway?
Oh. Right. Stephen Hawking.
