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Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
OK. That proves it.
Multi-world interpretation is correct and LHC is just a variant of quantum-suicide experiment.
Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Multi-world interpretation is correct and LHC is just a variant of quantum-suicide experiment.
That's what the birds want us to think. The truth is, they planned this, and there's more to come. We cannot allow even one more baguette to fall on the LHC. We must strike back.
That's right. I'm calling KFC.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty cock-sure all the birds have it in for us.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, you guys don't even have a plan for this bad joke thread, do you? Probably best to just wing it, anyway...
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
If we ever capture any, we had best not let them out on bail. I'm sure they pose a flight risk.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, what does KFC have to do with actual birds?
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
It has a lot to do with birds, just not much to do with chicken.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
They're both foul?
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
> Wait, what does KFC have to do with actual birds?
Think pigeons and seagulls.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
You can jump from a plane with a parachute and start defecating. If a bird got caught it would be an awesome revenge.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Your poor simple bastard. Fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.
The birds DID NOT plan this at all!!! They were *hired* by the Squirrels!
Even more insidious is the fact the Squirrels KNEW people like you would turn to KFC for revenge.... where addictive chemicals would make you crave it fortnightly!
It's all part of their PLAN!!! Wake up!
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Pigeons:
we were only kidding [xkcd.com]
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a joke.
In a park far away, two statues stood staring at each other across a fountain. One was a beautiful woman, the other a handsome man, both naked. One day, an angel appeared, waved his hand, and brought the statues to life. "You have been staring at each other for so long," said the angel, "that I would like to give you 30 minutes to enjoy each other's company."
The two people grinned at each other and ran into the bushes. The angel heard much giggling and merriment from them as he waited. Then, sweaty and out of breath, the two came back.
The angel looked at his watch. "You still have another ten minutes!"
"Awesome!" said the man to the woman. "This time, you hold the pigeon and I'll shit on his head!"
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Interesting)
this theory has actually been proposed: That activating the LHC would actually destroy the universe, that is, the whole universe, even reaching back into the past. That would mean that the only possible universes are ones in which the LHC is never activated, which means that if we keep trying, implausible events will continue to occur, preventing the LHC from activating- after all, we're here now, right. That's _proof_ that the LHC will never be activated!
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ObSimpsons (Score:5, Funny)
I have a rock that keeps tigers away to sell you ...
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Re:ObSimpsons (Score:5, Funny)
I have a rock that keeps tigers away to sell you ...
Please, this is the 21st century... there's an App for that.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:4, Funny)
So then is this the improbability drive? Eee gads!!!! Douglas Adams was a prophet.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Interesting)
Only if the universe cannot tolerate a paradox.
There is no proof that the universe won't allow paradoxes, such as going back in time and shooting your grandparents before your parents are born.
*WE* think its paradoxical, and therefore it "can't happen that way". One doesn't necessarily lead to the other - we just assume it does.
Maybe the universe simply "doesn't give a shit" ... and that actually appears to be the case, not just from this, but from the whole "arrow of time" perspective. To someone whose frame of reference isn't constrained by a unidirectional arrow of time, paradoxes cease to be paradoxes. To them, if you go back in time and kill your grandparents before you were born, you continue to exist. No paradox, it just is what it is. It's allowed.
It's certainly a better explanation of everything than the "infinite multiple branching worlds" theory (and gives rise to a universe where the branching worlds theory would actually appear to be true).
and yes, you can subscribe to my newsletter explaining our baguette-flinging overlords :-)
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Interesting)
What if the higgs only destroys *some* of the universes?
what if the higgs just "re-arranges" the universe?
what if the higgs just destroys itself?
what if the higgs doesn't exist?
Optimal outcome, with no paradox: Two Higgs walk into a bar. One destroys the bar. The other one goes back in time and destroys the other Higgs. Two Higgs walk into a bar ...
From the point of view of the rest of the universe, the bar continues to exist. However, how many Higgs EXIT the bar? Is it
#3 and #6 both open up some interesting possibilities ... especially if you replace "Higgs" with "People". People wouldn't "merge" when their time lines rejoin. #4 "could" work, in some strange way, but you would have to allow for a universe that tolerates non-continuity (which ours does in some respects, strange as it seems at the macro level) #5 is definitely out. #2 is just boring. #1 doesn't work, if you think for a few minutes - it requires the rest of the universe to agree to stop "observing", or that time stop for the whole universe.
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Multi-world interpretation is correct
Douglas Adams is now in an alternate universe, controlling this one. Proof? Well, I had no idea what a "Baguette" was; French for birdshit, maybe? So I looked it up at [wikipedia.org], where I was presented with a picture of a breadstick.
The first sentence of the article is "Not to be confused with Breadstick.
For the architectural ornament (decorative), see Baguette (disambiguation)."
Ok, I'll be sure not to confuse this breadstick with a breadstick. French people, sheesh... Or did the bird drop a decorative architectural ornament (not to be confused with a breadstick) down the hole?
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Re:Evacuate this universe! (Score:5, Funny)
Did you not the dimensions on that wikipedia article? A baguette is not a bread stick. It's that long loaf of bread that people on TV are always carrying in their grocery bags when something interesting happens to them.
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Birds dropping baguettes? (Score:5, Funny)
Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but what's its unladen airspeed velocity?
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Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but what's its unladen airspeed velocity?
I am more interested in the terminal velocity of the Baguette.
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Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
I also want to know why the only thing the Baguette thought on the way down was oh no, not again.
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Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
Then again, the universe might reset if we found out.
Or perhaps it already ha*&@#!(.. <NO CARRIER>
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Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
A gag?
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Re:Cosmic Time Travelling Karma? (Score:5, Funny)
A spit obviously.
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Large Bread Collider (Score:5, Funny)
Impossible to operate? (Score:5, Informative)
This article [timesonline.co.uk] gives more information
A lot of things will drop on sections "of outdoor machinery". It seems that this LHC machine has been designed in such a way that will never get a chance to work.
Bird briefing... (Score:5, Funny)
The bird's briefing:
The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station.
Re:Bird briefing... (Score:5, Funny)
The bird's briefing:
The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station.
If the bird has been hitting womp-rats back home there should be no problem.
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Put a roof over it or something? (Score:5, Interesting)
One wonders how much it would take to put some kind of roofing over the most vulnerable exterior equipment. Something like corrugated tin on a steel frame or whatever.
Or maybe a roof over the cafeteria and the rubbish bins, so that birds can't just come and steal baguettes.
I've never heard of such deleterious effects of a bird dropping anything on outdoor power station switchgear ... what kind of vulnerable kit is this anyways?
Re:Put a roof over it or something? (Score:5, Funny)
One wonders how much it would take to put some kind of roofing over the most vulnerable exterior equipment. Something like corrugated tin on a steel frame or whatever.
You slashdot wise guys! Do you REALLY think PROFESSIONAL scientists would leave critical equipment exposed? That professionals paid to design and engineer a multi-billion dollar piece of equipment would forget a basic piece of covering? That you sitting there and speculating behind your keyboard sitting in your underwear in your mother's basement might have a better idea of how to protect delicate scientific equipment than hundreds of scientists and engineers with post graduate degrees?
Well in this instance it looks like you might be right?
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Re:Put a roof over it or something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope
The bread was discovered on a busbar - an electrical connection inside one of eight buildings above ground on the 17-mile (27km) circuit in the Swiss countryside.
They don't need to invest in roofs, what they really need are doors.
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Re:Put a roof over it or something? (Score:5, Funny)
The bird breadboarded a busbar inside a building.
The problem is Windows.
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Re:Put a roof over it or something? (Score:5, Funny)
“Nobody knows how it got there,” she told The Times. “The best guess is that it was dropped by a bird, either that or it was thrown out of a passing aeroplane.”
If they've regularly got aeroplanes flying unnoticed through their buildings, they probably have bigger problems than birds and pieces of bread...
Obviously they should put up "no flying in buildings" signs.
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Re:Put a roof over it or something? (Score:4, Funny)
put some kind of roofing over the most vulnerable exterior equipment.
There was a roof over it... but unfortunately they forgot about the tunnel effect...
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Misleading summary title (Score:5, Insightful)
The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident
and the TFA
This incident won't delay the reactivation of the facility later this month
Re:Misleading summary title (Score:4, Funny)
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Here's an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Hypothesis: There are multiple universes. Many of them build the LHC. In those that build it, most turn it on, destroying themselves. Not only do they destroy themselves, but they take out their planet, their galaxy, and their universe, including time, such that they essentially never existed.
Obviously we can't live in one of those universes, so a series of accidents, bizarre or mundane, probably take place until someone decides it's not worth the effort and the project is scrapped.
That would explain the long delays and the mind-bogglingly arbitrary accidents.
Alternative hypothesis: The LHC is an internationally-funded, politically-changed science experiment of immense complexity. That alone would explain the delays and problems, and would also lead to it probably never being switched on.
3rd hypothesis: The LHC is switched on eventually, gives us much scientific knowledge, and doesn't kill us all. But really, that's boring and doesn't make for compelling science fiction. Just compelled science.
LHC not actually shut down (Score:5, Informative)
There's a saying (Score:4, Insightful)
"Never attribute to a time traveling malicious Higgs boson what can easily be attributed to human stupidity."
Physicists spend too much time in the lab in theoretical situations. It's amazing that when they design a machine that will go outside, they forget that birds tend to crap on everything.
The temp rise in question (Score:5, Interesting)
http://hcc.web.cern.ch/hcc/cryo_main/cryo_main.php?region=Sector81 [web.cern.ch]
Pretty wild to think that a rise up to 8 kelvin is a "serious overtemp event".
(And fancy CERN having all their engineering data online like that, open to everyone..... anyone'd think they invented the internet or something.)
Re:le sigh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because if it was, it would had been the roof collapsing that would had disabled it, and that would had caused a lot worse mess.
As a side note, I think that this confirms my pet theory concerning time travel: any attempt to do it will change the past, which changes the conditions of the travel slightly, which changes the past, and so on, until the travel never occurs and the past stops changing. In other words, a spacetime where time travel happens is unstable and decays into one where it won't. Quantum uncertainty would, in this interpretation, be there to allow causality to "stretch" enough to allow such decay; a hypothethical universe without quantum uncertainty but with sentience and time travel (which is an inevitable outcome of the Theory of Relativity, which in turn is an inevitable outcome from the laws of physics being the same for all observers) would tear itself apart. You can thus deduct the Uncertainty Principle from the Anthropic Principle (we are here, so this universe must be able to support sentient life).
I wonder if you could calculate the minimum required amount of uncertainty for spacetime to stay consistent, and how it would relate to observed/otherwise calculated values? Assume that the first singularity formed at t=0, and has been moving infinitely close to lightspeed ever since, and connects to every other time period through a wormhole, and go from there. The math is beyond me, does anyone else care to try?
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