Don't Cross the LHC Stream! (Maybe) 171
jamie points out this piece from always-entertaining Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, who asks this week the simple question "What happens if you put your hand in the beam of the Large Hadron Collider?" The thrill of discovery to me doesn't sound worth the worst-case scenario.
Simple (Score:4, Funny)
You get a built-in tool that makes it easier to masturbate.
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A third hand? Sweet!
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If you needed three hands to masturbate .... you wouldn't need to masturbate!
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Here is an explanation of the LHC.
http://www.audioguy.co.uk/6092 [audioguy.co.uk]
Just stumbled across it, had to post.
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"What happens if you put your hand in the beam of the Large Hadron Collider?"
You become famous for about 2.48154 nano seconds as the origin of the end of the universe.
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Next question... why is this even a question? There are two types of people, dead extremist masochists, and the rest of us...
SB
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You might actually be right.
Even if you survive, the radiation might sterilize you.
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But, according to comic books, that which doesn't kill me gives me superpowers!
Re:Simple (Score:4, Informative)
Well there is the slight problem of actually getting to the beam.
I think MythBusters are going to pass on this one.
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Somehow avoid the synchrotron radiation.
Stand on the inside of the curved path. Synchrotron radiation is outward.
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Christine O'Donnell clicked that link and now she's catatonic.
I hope you're happy now, you...you...animal.
Anyway, Granny Cuyler says Jesus is actually quite a bit thicker at the base. If you were the Son of God, wouldn't you be?
NSFW link in parent post! (Score:2)
Getting caught looking at it will absolutely get you a one-way ticket out the front door, even if your boss isn't a Christian.
Don't know about the hand (Score:1)
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But when I put my bottom in front of it I ended up with a huge black hole.
Let me guess, you are dyslexic and thought it was large hardon instead of hadron?
Sounds like it probed Uranus instead of creating a huge black hole.
Sounds like a job for the Mythbusters (Score:5, Funny)
They'd just stick a pig foot in there.
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Just don't let Tori ride his bike in there 8-(
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Prolly not such a good idea.
They'd blow the whole thing up in the end.
Already happened before (Score:5, Informative)
"So it was in 1978 that when the proton beam entered Anatoli Bugorski's skull it measured about 200,000 rads, and when it exited, having collided with the inside of his head, it weighed in at about 300,000 rads. Bugorski, a 36-year-old researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, was checking a piece of accelerator equipment that had malfunctioned - as had, apparently, the several safety mechanisms. Leaning over the piece of equipment, Bugorski stuck his head in the space through which the beam passes on its way from one part of the accelerator tube to the next and saw a flash brighter than a thousand suns. He felt no pain.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.12/science.html [wired.com]
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That quote makes it sound like he died.
Apparently he lived with no major disabilities.
it sounded like he was just very ungly afterwards and had seizors, but retained similar mental capabilities.
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Nor does the actual article that was linked!
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Well, some people survive a few dozen nails shot in their brain by a nailgun.
But most don't.
He just got one very thin but radioactive nail crossing the entirety of his head.
I'm pretty sure he had a big chance to die, that beam was apparently able to burn through veins, it could have hit some main vein in his brain.
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The symptoms described within the article sound very similar to that of a stroke. Seems this supports your idea.
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Sounds like his symptoms were closer to that of a stroke victim.
Makes sense, considering the type of damage a stroke causes would be similar to that which he experienced.
Re:Already happened before (Score:5, Insightful)
This was where I stopped reading and just read Anatoli Bugorski [wikipedia.org]'s Wikipedia article instead.
Re:Already happened before (Score:5, Insightful)
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The protons in an accelerator move a hell of a lot closer to the speed of light than they do to the speed of sound (in any imaginable substance).
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No, you won't.
The protons in the back have to accelerate the protons in front of them when they bump, and the proton in front can only get closer to the speed of light.
While it does so, it gets heavier and harder to move, which causes resistance to further speeding up.
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Re:Already happened before (Score:4, Funny)
To be fair, you obviously haven't visited the Pacific Northwest. Sonar is the appropriate measuring method 10 months of the year.
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Wooosh
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That man's survival due to head/brain injury in the face of certain death reminds me of another "believe it or not" jewel duscussed OT on /. few weeks back [wikipedia.org].
A XIX century miner named Phineas Gage long survived a mining explosion that put a 13 pound metal rod of 3.5 feet [brightbytes.com] across a room, after leaving a vertical hole in his head.
Wikipedia's mention of seizures for both, and the related links citing auras and other pre-seizure electrical phenomena sound like a sobering human depiction of how power lines in movie
Re:Already happened before (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but in a different dimension.
But it's a pretty lousy superpower. I understand that he can now guess anyone's weight just by talking to them on the phone.
That's my worst nightmare: I get a superpower, but it's something completely lame and useless, even for picking up chicks.
"After his mishap with the LHC, he was able to perform extreme card tricks!"
That would be my luck.
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Hey, extreme card tricks can pick up chicks. After all, girls love a guy good with his hands.
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That's my worst nightmare: I get a superpower, but it's something completely lame and useless, even for picking up chicks.
Maybe you would end up with the super amazing ability to grow your fingernails.
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No superpower is useless for picking up chicks.
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My superpower is to be able to read the minds of earthworms. Here's a sample: "Dirt. Dirt. Dirt. Mmm. Dirt. Oh, shit! Dirt. Dirt. Dirt.....
The gals love it.
It's already happened once. (Score:5, Informative)
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It says those protons were going about speed of sound. That doesn't sound right to me...
You replied to the wrong poster by mistake. The OP you are replying to correctly states "speed of light" in the article.
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Huh? Says speed of light.. maybe someone corrected it after seeing your comment.
for the record (Score:2)
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The inside of his head continued to burn away: all the nerves on the left were gone in two years, paralyzing that side of his face.
The story talks about the particle beam (basically) melting the left side of his face, and the left side of his brain. Why, then, does it continue to talk about him losing control of whatever still existed on the left-side of his face? Is it not common knowledge that the brain does a little switcharoo?
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Anatomy was never my strong point, but I was taught that the "switcharoo" occurs in the neck. So while the left brain controls the right hand, the left brain controls the left side of the head.
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[citation needed]
Re:It's already happened once. (Score:5, Informative)
If you read the link in the comment that you're replying to, you'd see that the guy took "500 times the presumed lethal dose" of particle spunk to the face/brain, and survived with nothing more than all the nerves in the left side of his face dying. Even completed his PhD.
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all the nerves in the left side of his face dying. Even completed his PhD.
With his right brain?
Re:It's already happened once. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, if you read it, his face swelled up so much it was not recognizable, his skin fell off, revealing the path of the beam though his skull and brain, and he now has epilepsy.
He lived and can function because the path of the beam was pure luck. Had the beam passed through a different part of his brain he may have died, or become a vegetable. There was a case of a man in the 1800s, working on a railroad who had a steel rod shoot through his head, and took a large section of his brain with it. He was not expected to live. But he did, but his personality was altered by the loss. He still retained much of his memory and abilities.
Alzheimer's is a slowly progressive disease, which takes away parts of the brain over time, yet many of these people can still function for years.
The fact is there are several factors involved, but it's fairly likely any living tissue subjected to a beam from the LHC is going have many cells destroyed. Think of something like laser surgery, but with a much bigger beam.
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Yeah I know he was pretty lucky, and about the construction worker, etc, I studied a couple of years of Pyschology. Was just pointing out that it's not a certain death scenario, like heavy exposure to radioactivity for example.
Its like the real estate truism... (Score:2)
The value of a house is determined by three things, location, location and location.
Were the brain is injured is important!
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Don't cross any high-energy streams, definitely. (Score:4, Informative)
Someone I know had the small child of a neighbor flash him in the eye with a cheap Chinese red laser pointer some time ago, and got a permanent scar on his retina and a second "blind spot" in one of his eyes. Apparently, the pointer was a little bit too powerful in the IR region than it should have been.
Moral of the story - avoid high energy beams regardless of the wavelength or the particle kind because you never know what will slip by even in a supposedly "safe" circumstances.
Odd (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know of any red lasers that have IR components. Lasers are, by definition, monochromatic. That's the idea after all. The reason some have IR as well is they are DPSS. They produce IR radiation directly, a frequency doubler then takes it up to the visual range. That's a lossy process, so the IR is much higher than the final output, hence an IR filter is needed. Green lasers work this way, at least all the ones I've seen. However red laser pointers are all direct drive, the diode outputs the frequency you want. That's why they are used for CDs and so on, keeps the cost down.
That is also the big deal with Blu-ray lasers (actually quite violet, not blue). Again, direct diode lasers. Means they cost less, use less space and so on, and of course being violet have a higher wavelength.
I've never heard of a red DPSS laser pointer.
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Well, I thought it odd too, but that is the explanation he got from the people who treated him and he swears the laser was red, so it probably was.
Anyway, my point was it is dangerous to get in the way of any beam, including the supposedly safe and low-powered laser pointers.
Re:Don't cross any high-energy streams, definitely (Score:5, Funny)
Moral of the story - avoid high energy beams regardless of the wavelength or the particle kind because you never know what will slip by even in a supposedly "safe" circumstances.
Incorrect. Moral of the story: Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:Don't cross any high-energy streams, definitely (Score:4, Informative)
Incorrect. Lasers use a highly focused parallel high energy beam. Because it's high energy, it can burn. By projecting the focused parallel beam through a convex lens (the eye's lens) you refocus the beam and all the parallel high-energy photons focus on a point. This point light then burns the back of the cornea. Like looking directly at the Sun. Or focusing a magnifying glass on a leaf on a sunny day. Has nothing to do with IR and everything to do with optics and energy levels.
Incorrect (Score:2)
Incorrect. It has to do with IR inasmuch as you _do not see IR light_. Thus, the apparent brightness is a _lot_ lower than the true light output. Obviously, the fact that IR is great to transport heat helps in burning tissue.
Also, with lasers, you do not need to focus any more precisely _because_ the beams are parallel (it gets focused within the laser's casing). This (and the fact that they waves are in sync) is why a laser can cut steel while a flashlight can't.
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Wrong again!
Laser = Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
A laser has two partially mirrored lenses (say 99% and 80%) on either side of a medium, let's say ruby. you inject some high energy light (say a flash from a Xenon strobe light) into the ruby. This creates a photon cascade event. Some of the photons shoot out in directions parallel to the two lenses. But they get reflected by the mirrors. One mirror is less mirrored than the other. The photons then bounce back, and knock ou
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None of what you said contradicts anything I said.
I should have stated that my comments regarding IR are for green (and IR ;) lasers only, though. Re-reading what I said, I could have made this more explicit. OTOH, I directly replied to what you said without contradicting you.
Oh well, lesson learned for both of us :)
Acrylic... (Score:5, Interesting)
An artist makes unusual "sculptures" by putting acrylic blocks into the beam path of a relatively small electron accelerator:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1232908/Captured-lightning-The-artist-traps-fossilised-bolts-electricity-inside-acrylic-blocks.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Re:Acrylic... (Score:5, Informative)
Slightly different, as what the artist does is actually charge up the acrylic block with excess electrons (like a supersaturated chemical solution) that have nowhere to go because of the acrylic and surrounding air acting as an insulator. Then he takes a nail to the start of the "lightning", and hammers it in which creates a ground (just like what happens in charged thunderclouds when lightning strikes), creating the effect so reminiscent of lightning.
You can see it in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-X5QAV0Rtk [youtube.com]
They start with a charged up piece of acrylic, and it's obvious that the effect is not from the beam itself but from the geometry of the piece of acrylic and the grounding path they introduce.
Sounds like a idea for a sci-fi channel b movie! (Score:2)
Sounds like a idea for a sci-fi channel b movie!
From the comments below the article... (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone calculated that about 4 joules of energy would be deposited. I assume that is in a single pass of the beam. However, if the beam recirculates (does it?), then the hypothetical hand will get hit by the beam many times. Then a huge amount of energy will end up in the hand in a short time and it'd probably be cut by the beam as you inserted it.
What also intrigues me is whether a fatal does of radiation would occur from the 4 joules/pass that you would get. I think it would be about 8 Gray of radiation dose into the hand. A 5 Gray whole-body dose of radiation is usually fatal. The hand is less vulnerable to radiation than the body in general, however, this cannot be a good thing.
Here's my take:
multiple passes: either hand is sliced as it is inserted into the beam, or the hand explodes
single pass: might lose the hand, owner of hand might get pretty sick
--PM
Re:From the comments below the article... (Score:5, Informative)
12. Bethany Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 8:20 am
Alright, here's what I calculated:
The protons are high energy with lorentz factor of gamma=7500, kinetic energy is about K=7×10^6 eV. The paper cited below says that the stopping power of a proton going 10^6 eV is about 2.5×10^8 eV cm^2 g^-1. Using the density of muscular tissue rho=1g cm^3 and the thickness of my hand of 1 cm, the energy deposited is 2.5×10^8 eV. In other units its 1.07×10^-11 calories, 4.49×10^-11 Joules, and 1×10^-14 grams of TNT. If there are hundred billion protons per bunch in the beam (as the video said) then for every bunch you get 4.49 Joules or 0.001 grams of TNT of energy. (emphasis mine)
There are two beams, each of which contains 2808 bunches. Don't worry about the effect of multiple passes, though, since there won't be any tissue left in the beam's path by the time the first pass is over.
A more informative comment showed up later:
31. Xerxes Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 10:45 am
I think the hand-beam question is best answered by this document: http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/BeamdumpInteraction.pdf [web.cern.ch]
Granted, a carbon block isn't an exact model of the human hand, but it's probably close enough. The key points are:
1) "this energy deposit over 85 s is long enough to change the density of the target material. The density decreases at the inner part of the beam heated region because of the outgoing shock waves in the transverse direction. As an example, after the impact of 200 bunches with a size of = 0.2 mm, a maximum temperature of 7000K and a density decrease by a factor of 4 is expected." The results of heating your hand to 7000K and increasing its volume by a factor of 4 are probably best not imagined. Since a full beam is 2808 bunches instead of 200, you might want to scale that by a factor of 10 too.
2) But on the other hand (hehe): "The beam tunnels through the target and deposits the energy with a penetration depth of 10 m to 15 m" Since your hand is not 10m thick, you won't pick up the full effect. This paper goes into some detail of the spatial distribution of the energy dump: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/972357/files/lhc-project-report-930.pdf [cdsweb.cern.ch] So at hand-thickness of 2ish cm, you'd only get maybe an eighth of the effects of #1, so your hand will only reach the more modest temperature of 1000K (times 10 for a full 2808 bunches?). The shockwave from the blast will extend several cm in the transverse direction; translation, the rest of your hand will be blown off by the middle of your hand exploding. Probably the part of the accelerator apparatus downstream of your hand picks up the rest of the energy. The rest of you probably wouldn't want to be standing next to it when it blows.
Cool pictures of the effects of a low-energy (450-GeV) beam on copper plates are in http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/PAC.2005.1590851 [doi.org]
(I spent so much time looking up references, several other people made the same points. Oh well.)
Note particularly the fact that if one beam hit the solid graphite beam dump without being swept around during the pass, the surface would be at 7000 C, and would be well in the process of exploding, by the time the first 200 bunches had hit. Your hand, having a lower boiling point than graphite, would begin to remove itself from the path of the beam somewhat sooner, and would therefore probably absorb rather less energy. That may be small consolation, though, since it pretty much means that the splattered remnants of your hand wouldn't be as intensely radioactive as the carbon in the beam dump would be.
total energy in the beam equals 173 kilograms TNT (Score:4, Informative)
The total energy in the beam is 724 MJ (173 kilograms of TNT) (energy stored in magnets are 10x this) That is a bomb big enough to take out a school.
It would be hard to get your hand into vacuum, but imagine a space suit arm attached to a sandblast cabinet.
The beams energy would hit your hand in a spot d1mm. It would most certainly deposit all its energy there until that part of your hand became a vacuum. Probably similar to a laser knife. In addition, your flesh that obstructed the beam would give off a lot of radiation as it burned away. Imagine Hiroshima 1km away x10^8 on that part of your body.
Every proton would not hit something in your hand on first encounter, but if it missed, it would just loop around, and hit on a later time. The result would be the same. In a short time, your hand and your space glove would have a hole through it. More likely a straight cut from where you put it in. Anything nearby would be exposed to a good dose of radiation as these collisions would be quite "dirty".
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> It would be hard to get your hand into vacuum...
The only "practical" way to do it would be to modify the line running to the beam dump by inserting an air gap (the windows would have to be tungsten or something). You'd place the hand in the gap and then divert the beam into the dump line.
> ...imagine a space suit arm attached to a sandblast cabinet.
As you swung your arm into position the beam would blow a hole in the edge of the glove. Hitting the glove would disrupt it enough that it would scatte
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Having read the Fermilab report I see that there is no point in making the windows tungsten. I also see that if they really wanted to know what the beam would do to a slab of meat they could model it pretty accurately.
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I'm afraid you're missing one point.
Sure all the local effects would be as described.
But your hand is composed mostly of water. About 2mm diameter by some 2cm length cylinder inside your hand would turn into massively superheated steal over few nanoseconds. Steam that hot, from that amount of water, in that volume has enormous pressure. Maybe the resulting explosion would end near your wrist, but I suspect shrapnels of your own hand bones would kill you.
Still waiting on the gamma bomb... (Score:2)
You can look into you LHC & lasers and what not.
me, i'm waiting for the test of a gamma bomb, so I can sneak out on the test range.
Just don't make me angry.
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Just make sure to put your expensive uv grade sunglasses on. Wouldn't want you to get hurt.
SB
Fermi Lab had a beam loss event in 2003... (Score:5, Interesting)
Fermilab had a beam loss event in 2003 (beam came into contact with part of the ring). The beam drilled a 2.8 mm hole through a 5mm tungsten support. It also etched a groove 25 cm long and 1.5 mm deep into a stainless steel collimator (after passing through the tungsten). Apparently this took about 8.3 ms (over several turns of the beam) before the beam dissipated.
I'm guessing if you could insert your hand fast enough (not possible, even if there wasn't a vacuum tube) you would end up with a nice small hole drilled through your hand.
This is the report from the Fermi incident:
http://beamdocs.fnal.gov/DocDB/0011/001185/001/FN-751.pdf [fnal.gov]
Reminds me of a joke... (Score:5, Funny)
"That's sick!" replies his wife. "You need help."
"I don't see any reason it would be sick", retorts the man, "I think it would be fun!"
Two days later, his wife comes home from an errand, and her husbands car is in the driveway. "You're home early", she says.
"Yes, I put my penis in the pickle slicer!" he smiles.
"Oh my God!", gasps his wife, "What happened?"
"I got fired! So did she!"
You never studied... (Score:2)
Anatoli Bugorski (Score:2)
...tried it in 1978 at the IHEP. But not with his hand [wikipedia.org]!
Hoax (Score:2)
My local pub offers hadron flavoured beer.
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ummm (Score:2)
I'm surprised no-one could give a better answer (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure plenty of scientists must have looked at this, after all someone had to design the beam dumps. From http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000570 [symmetrymagazine.org]
In 2003, two-thirds of the superconducting magnets in the Tevatron’s six-kilometer ring quenched at the same time. The beam drilled a hole in one collimator and created a 30-centimeter groove in another. That accident, while serious, was the only one in the accelerator’s 20-year history, and the machine was back up and running within two weeks. Could something similar happen on a larger scale at the LHC?
“In a bad accident, the beam could go off course and drill a hole through one or two magnets,” says Schmidt. While this would not destroy the LHC, it would still require time and money for repair.
I'm pretty sure something that can drill a hole in a super conducting magnet would make a hole in someone's hand...
What happens? (Score:2)
What happens if you put your hand in the beam of the Large Hadron Collider?
What do you mean exactly? What happens to your hand - or which results could you expect from the experiment?
The experimental data are hard to predict - a hand is a very complex target, and many reactions are possible. Quite likely the measurements will be too overcrowded to make much sense.
What will happen to the hand is perhaps easier to predict. Firstly there is the hard vacuum, which will make the blood boil - the resulting water vapour will disrupt the beam, so nothing further will happen until the hand
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Why does anything exist at all, instead of nothing?
Why not?
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And then when nothing happens, they'll repeat the experiment with 10kg of TNT strapped to the pig.
Come on, it's what they do in *every* episode.
Re:Mythbusters (Score:4, Funny)
Come on, it's what they do in *every* episode.
You almost say it like it's a bad thing.
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Mythbusters in general is a bad thing. They don't teach physics.
SB
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I fail to see your point. It's not like it's Bill Nye the Science Guy. It's guys who blow shit up. If you learn anything by accident, it's your own damn fault.
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I think you got it.
SB
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Then watch you some Braniacs. Much more science and much more fun.
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I prefer reading. No advertisements interrupting the thought train ;)
SB
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Glad to know I'm not the only one fuzzy on the whole good / bad thing.
Somebody tell him about the twinkie.
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Tell me this was a joke. We're talking about a beam that bored holes through tungsten and etched steel (after boring a hole in tungsten) when they had that accident. Beams that smash protons and neutron into sub particles. Kind of like the effect of shooting the cue ball out a rocket launcher at the eight ball at 800 fps. Now, I'd agree, all this talk of "radiation" and hands blowing up are ridiculous. This is not the kind of radiation you'd see in an atomic explosion. But, I's suspect significant energy w
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True, true, but we're not talking about medical proton beams. We're talking about beams designed to smash atoms, not for human medicine.
I know, I won't be sticking my hand in that beam given the chance. Any more than you'll see me stick my hand in liquid nitrogen. Even though, it may be possible to do it quickly and not sustain any damage.