Comment Re: what is dpc (Score 5, Informative) 86
the Data Protection Commissioner
Comment Re:Benefits? (Score 1) 88
Traditionally giant lightning generators are used to develop lightning protection.
Is that what this project is aiming for, because it seems strange that a person would have to use a crowd-funding model to fund research into a health and safety issue, that one would assume the likes of G.E. or Philips or some other multi-national would be able to do much more comprehensibly?
Comment Benefits? (Score 1) 88
Could you explain a bit more about the possible benefits that mankind could gain from these experiments? Just for us lay-persons who don't really understand high energy physics and its associated terminolgy!
Comment Do they even know what they're aiming at?? (Score 2) 275
hi there,
Long time reader, first time poster...
what the hell are Anon doing? Last night they took down the website of one of our political parties (Fine Gael), the replacement cover notice stating something about freedom and press and internet.. or something like that...
But the party they targeted isn't even a member of the running government!! They are currently running quite high in the polls and will do better in the upcoming elections that the current party (Fianna Fail) "running" the place... A party that is VERY corrupt and who only technically has a mandate to be in government!
Well done lads! (sarcasm)
Colliding Particles Can Make Black Holes After All 269
cremeglace writes with this excerpt from ScienceNOW:
"You've heard the controversy. Particle physicists predict the world's new highest-energy atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, might create tiny black holes, which they say would be a fantastic discovery. Some doomsayers fear those black holes might gobble up the Earth — physicists say that's impossible — and have petitioned the United Nations to stop the $5.5 billion LHC. Curiously, though, nobody had ever shown that the prevailing theory of gravity, Einstein's theory of general relativity, actually predicts that a black hole can be made this way. Now a computer model shows conclusively for the first time that a particle collision really can make a black hole."
That said, they estimate the required energy for creating a black hole this way to be roughly "a quintillion times higher than the LHC's maximum"; though if one of the theories requiring compact extra dimensions is true, the energy could be lower.
Astrium Hopes To Test Grabbing Solar Energy From Orbit 144
goldaryn writes "Word from the BBC today is that Europe's biggest space company is seeking partners to help get a satellite-based solar power trial into orbit:
'EADS Astrium says the satellite system would collect the Sun's energy and transmit it to Earth via an infrared laser, to provide electricity. Space solar power has been talked about for more than 30 years as an attractive concept because it would be 'clean, inexhaustible, and available 24 hours a day.' However, there have always been question marks over its cost, efficiency and safety. But Astrium believes the technology is close to proving its maturity.'"
