Brian Cox hits back at doom mongers

"Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a t---."

Full article at the Telegraph. Grow into these trousers... >>

Richard Dawkins at TED

Dawkins talks about evolution, atheism and religion:

An atheist's call to arms.
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How and why and where did civilization begin?

A good question.
Online Documentaries 4 U is sctatching my itch just now!

The lost pyramids of Caral


'Where' is well understood: Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, Peru and Central America.

'How' and 'why' are interlinked I think. If you want to do something you will try to find a way.

"Why are you doing this?"
  "Because I can better feed my family"
"How are you doing this?"
  "By coming to work here"

"Why are you doing this?"
  "Because it's safer"
"How are you doing this?"
  "As fast as I f**king can" Grow into these trousers... >>

More on the LHC

Following up on yesterday's post, here are a couple of old BBC Horizon broadcasts (~50min each).

The Six Billion Dollar Experiment


What on Earth is wrong with gravity?

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via Online Documentaries 4 U Grow into these trousers... >>

Our understanding of the structure of matter is about to change

We've all heard the hype, the world is about to end! OMFG!!


The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, at CERN is about to be fired up. First beam as they euphemistically call it...

On Wednesday, after about 15 years of work, a science team numbering many thousands (to say nothing of the engineers, technicians, electricians, plumbers, cleaners, tea-ladies and PhD students) will throw a switch and turn on the biggest scientific experiment ever undertaken.

This project is huge with a capital HU!

Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer was lucky enough to visit the LHC earlier this year. He wrote:

"It’s difficult to convey just how astonishing this all is. The scale of it is simply awesome. Standing off to the side, taking in the size and complexity of CMS and ATLAS, I was filled with a sense of pride. People built this! Every single cable (and there were miles of cable!), every rivet, every bolt, every iron block and metal plate, everything, was dreamed up, designed, redesigned, built, and assembled."

More from Phil later, but what exactly will this thing do?
I'll let the charismatic Prof. Brian Cox explain:



This is impressive science, a massive construction to try to observe the smallest and most fleeting glimpses of an underlying structure to what we see and feel in the world around us.

Here's Phil Plait again with his own video from LHC:




And listen to Phil and Brian in conversation on a CERN podcast
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Oh, and the stories of microscopic black holes eating the Earth - BULLSHIT - see Hawking Radiation. The folks at LHC will know if they have created a black hole by its pattern of decay!
Grow into these trousers... >>

Asteroid encounter #2

Pull up your trousers: Asteroid encounter.

The Rosetta spacecraft and asteroid Steins have danced together briefly in the cosmic void. Here's the first image release from ESA.

Asteroid Steins seen from a distance of 800 km, taken by the OSIRIS imaging system from two different perspectives. The effective diameter of the asteroid is 5 km, approximately as predicted. At the top of the asteroid (as shown in this image), a large crater, approximately 2 km in size, can be seen.
Credits: ESA ©2008 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPM/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Grow into these trousers... >>

Weeing down my trouser leg #6 - again

And then I thought... Lonnie Donegan wasn't so bad, really:

Lonnie Donegan's Skiffle Group - Puttin' On The Style


My Old Man's A Dustman Lonnie Donegan - 1960


Does your chewing gum lose its flavor - Lonnie Donegan

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Batten down the hatches*

It's going to be wet:

via the Met Office.

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*This a nautical term
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Asteroid encounter

On Friday, ESA's Rosetta spacecraft will do a fly-by of asteroid 2867 Steins a small rock, a tiny rock, about 4.6 km across between the orbits of Mars And Jupiter.
Rosetta is currently tracking Steins and will make course adjustments, if needed, aiming for a closest approach of about 800 km.

This will be a good opportunity to test systems on Rosetta but also fascinating in it's own right. I'll try to post some images etc over the weekend as they as released.

The Rosetta mission is very ambitious including another asteroid fly-by (21 Lutetia in 2010) and culminating in a six month study of a cometary nucleus (67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014) where it will orbit as close as 2km and release a lander to the surface.
From The Planetary Society:

Rosetta will spend six months mapping and observing Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which is only 4 kilometers/2.5 miles in diameter. Then, the spacecraft will release Philae, the lander, to the core for the first-ever direct sampling of a comet's nucleus. Rosetta will continue to make observations from as close as 2 kilometers/1.2 miles. Together with the lander, Rosetta will conduct a total of 21 experiments that will characterize the comet's dynamic properties and surface morphology, as well as determine physical properties of the surface and subsurface, and the chemical, mineralogical, and isotopic compositions.

Another mission to watch out for.
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Image credit: ESA Grow into these trousers... >>

Weeing down my trouser leg #5

I just fancied a bit of the Grateful Dead, here's a couple of my faves.
From 'Dead Ahead':

Grateful Dead - Birdsong


Grateful Dead - Ripple
Grow into these trousers... >>