A victim of the big bang.

[ryan]

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=629454&rss=yes

That's just horrible.

 

[pandadude]

I say charge all the media reports with murder! That's why she killed herself, because the media told her there was a high chance of dying.
I still don't see her logic though...suicide she was guaranteed death, LHC (if she believed the media), she MAY have died. Surely as scared as she was, she had a better chance of survival with option 2.

 

[tblaxland]

That's why she killed herself, because the media told her there was a high chance of dying.

I have a high chance of dying. I'd even be willing to bet on it. :dry:

 

[jedidia]

Funny thing is, in switzerland you have to put some effort into finding articles about the LHC in papers, and TV barely mentiones it, and we're sitting right on top of it. Not even the green left said anything about it, they're too occupied with their initiative for banning SUV's I guess...

It's kind of flattering to think the end of the world was expected to originate in Switzerland... :blink:

 

[bujin]

It's kind of flattering to think the end of the world was expected to originate in Switzerland... :blink:

And the guy in charge of switching the machine on - I always knew that the Welsh would have a hand in the destruction of all life on Earth! :lol:

As for the topic though, it's a shame. The girl must have been having some pretty nasty problems to want to kill herself over such a story though. As has been pointed out, it really makes little sense to kill yourself because you're scared that switching on a machine might kill you!

I would speculate that the girl was unhappy about something else, or that she was having some psychological problems, rather than the whole thing being blamed on the LHC.

But yes, if it WAS the LHC story which drove her to suicide, then the media should absolutely shoulder much of the blame. You could argue that it's people like Otto Rossler who start it all with their misinformed views on what is going to happen, but as Gia Milinovich, wife of CERN physicist Professor Brian Cox says, when you weigh up the thousands of physicists on one side who say it's perfectly safe with a handful of misinformed non-physicists on the other side and give them equal time, it makes their view seem equally important and equally plausible, when that simply isn't the case.

 

[Ghostrider]

We're ALL victims of the Big Bang. Had it never happened, we wouldn't be here risking death every given day.

 

[Moonwalker]

We're ALL victims of the Big Bang.

We're all victims of the Big Bang Theory. At least those who believe in

I don't believe in. The Big Bang Theory offers no explanation really. It just tries to explain what might have happened after. We'll never ever know anyway...

 

[Urwumpe]

I don't believe in. The Big Bang Theory offers no explanation really. It just tries to explain what might have happened after. We'll never ever know anyway...

You don't believe in it, because it does not seem to answer a question you asked. I mean, what should the Big Bang Theory, in your eyes, explain to you? Why you feel like 92 in the morning?

And because you have not understood it. If you would have understood it, your understanding would be exactly opposite of what you write here:

"It describes what we see today and extrapolates it to what might have happened before. But as we'll never know if the known laws of physics also apply to extreme high energy densities, we'll never be able to really tell what happened."

Remember: The word Big Bang was only coined by opponents of the theory of an expanding universe. When people took the Big Bang idea serious and made predictions, and these predictions had been later found to be true (CMBR), you can be sure that the Big Bang theory, like it is called today, is correct until the first second after the Big Bang in our current time line - when the universe became transparent for radiation. It could be a few nanoseconds less or a few nanoseconds longer... but until this point, the theory is solid and observed.

What the particle accelerator experiments find out and how much they apply to the real universe, that can be argued about. Sure is that the behavior of the universe was at least like in current experiments until about a half second into the universe before it became transparent for radiation.

 

[Moonwalker]

Even if I understand explanations, I still don't have to agree or to believe in. Less than ever in theories

 

[Urwumpe]

Even if I understand explanations, I still don't have to agree or to believe in. Less than ever in theories

If it is a scientific theory, it would also not be a matter of believe or faith. And it does also not care if anybody agrees with it... (Remember also that a scientific theory is not a public opinion theory. That would be more a hypothesis, if it is based on observations.)

A scientific consensus is a pretty instable term. Just one measurement could change the tides.

 

[ar81]

Have you realized about the danger of an asteroid?

Politicians want money and power, so a WWIII is highly unlikely despite of hard talk exchange in the media.
But asteroids do not use hardtalk. They collide or not...

It is said that most of accidents take place within a 2 km radius around home, so we need to move Earth 4 km to be safe.:rofl:

 

[bujin]

Even if I understand explanations, I still don't have to agree or to believe in. Less than ever in theories

You don't have to believe in anything.

But the general consensus is that the only people who don't believe in the Big Bang theory are those who don't understand it. To everyone else, the evidence is there, and the theory has held up to pretty close scrutiny for decades.

It's a bit like the debate over creationism and evolution. The people who don't believe in evolution are usually found to be totally ignorant of the facts.

 

[Bluefinger]

Even if I understand explanations, I still don't have to agree or to believe in. Less than ever in theories

In Science, a Theory is about the highest level of distinction one can get, whereas the common usage of the word theory would imply an untested idea or a set of predictions. Do not confuse the two!

You don't 'believe' in Theories in the same sense that it is a matter of faith. A Theory often has a lot of evidence going for it and is generally consistent with observed reality. But hey, if you still think the Big Bang Theory is only a 'theory', then Gravity is only a 'theory' and so on.

In other words... a semantic mess.

 

[Moonwalker]

I don't adore religions. But I also don't adore science all along. Anyway, I don't want to try to take away peoples be-all and end-all beliefs and theories. I'm just not participating in old and modern myths

 

[to be]

That article claims "They dismissed as "pure fiction" doomsday predictions that the experiment could create anti-matter, or black holes.". Obviously the LHC will create anti-matter, so I doubt the accuracy of that article.

 

[Urwumpe]

I don't adore religions. But I also don't adore science all along. Anyway, I don't want to try to take away peoples be-all and end-all beliefs and theories. I'm just not participating in old and modern myths

Are you willed to boycott all comforts of science in your life? Really all?

 

[Xantcha]

I don't adore religions. But I also don't adore science all along. Anyway, I don't want to try to take away peoples be-all and end-all beliefs and theories. I'm just not participating in old and modern myths

Is the whole concept of science flawed? Is it plain evil, necessary evil or just outdated tool?
I mean - can you explain your position on science more clearly?

 

[Kyle]

I'm a man of Science and Religion, I read the book of Genesis, "And the Earth was without forum, and void" That's almost exactly a description of Pre-Life and water Earth, it was without Forum in saying it was covered with Volcano's, crater's, and constantly being hit. Being void as in obviously no life.

 

[bujin]

I'm a man of Science and Religion, I read the book of Genesis, "And the Earth was without forum, and void" That's almost exactly a description of Pre-Life and water Earth, it was without Forum in saying it was covered with Volcano's, crater's, and constantly being hit. Being void as in obviously no life.

Without wishing to turn this into another science v religion threads, I'd say that it's not really fair to have expected bronze age desert tribes to understand the science of the formation of the solar system, so it's quite futile to interpret their Genesis story as factual.

For example, it goes on to say that God then created light. Well in reality, the sun was formed well before the earth, so the light would have already been there. But God doesn't create the sun or the moon until the fourth day, which is after the plants! We can't expect these bronze age tribes to have known about photosynthesis, but how does one explain how these plants lived without the sun? And again, in reality, it took a few billion years before plants evolved.

He created animals in the sea, on the land and in the air at the same time. Evolution tells us that life began in the sea and over the course of millions of years spread onto land, then into the air.

The question should be why should we expect the Genesis account to be the actual story of creation rather than any of the thousands of other creation myths? They can all be interpreted in ways which fit marginally in with the discoveries of science. But they are all vague enough to allow our own imaginations to do the shoe-horning.

 

[Pilot7893]

I think the reason things like the Y2K hystaria, the 2012 theory, and this arise is because humans are naturally interested by the idea they will get to see the end of humanity