James Burke - Connections, ep.1 (clip)

See what your answers would be to these questions. I didn't like the answers I had.

In case you haven't heard

Today is not Hadron Collider Day:

All the world's media is going bananas over "first beam" day at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the world's most stupendous particle-punisher, which switched on this morning (following an initial hiccup which appeared to be fixed by the traditional expedient of turning it off then on again). Today, it is being strongly implied, is the moment of truth - today is the big day, when the LHC might unmask the elusive "god particle" - or alternatively destroy the world and indeed perhaps the entire universe.

There's just one snag with all that - it's cobblers. All the good, interesting stuff from the LHC - the Higgs deiton, the dark matter, the possibly planet-gobbling black hole dimensional portal threat and/or universe-buster runaway strangelet or monopole soup plagues, dessert topping apocalypses etc - none of that's on offer today. All of these excellent possibilities require the LHC boffins to actually collide some hadrons - well, duh. The clue's in the name. But they aren't ready for that yet....

....Only at that stage - probably a year or more from now - will the colliding protons be disintegrated with sufficient violence to produce the various treats we have been promised. Strangely perhaps, by then it seems a racing cert that the broadcasters will all have gone home, and the scribblers will mostly have ceased to file copy. Once the insane laughs begin to truly ring out in the LHC's underground caverns, once the mad scientists wipe the foam from their lips, roll up their sleeves, lock and load their outrageous particle guns and really start to show what they can do, the chances are that nobody will be watching.

ht: the day they tried to kill me

J.G. Ballard - The Drowned World (Martians and Us BBC)

Martians and Us
jgballard.com
check out Ballardian
RE/Search is all over Ballard

Speaking of Ballard, if you slept on the film adaptation of Empire of the Sun, you really should go back and watch it. In my opinion, it's Spielberg's one truly great film. I believe that in a hundred years it will be regarded as his masterpiece.



Empire of the Sun

William Gibson: Dystopia an Optimistic Scenario

Somehow, this piece of dated matter crossed my desk, so I gave it a quick scan. Nothing earthshattering, overall, but one thing jumped out at me:

"We've forgotten that a whole lot of smart people used to wake up every day thinking that that day could well be the day the world ended. So when I started writing what people saw as this grisly dystopian, punky science fiction, I actually felt that I was being wildly optimistic: "Hey, look — you do have a future. It's kind of harsh, but here it is." I wasn't going the post-apocalyptic route, which, as a regular civilian walking around the world, was pretty much what I expected to happen myself." (William Gibson: The Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary Interview)

Same here. Those of you born after 1980 might not be aware of what a euphoric sense of relief many of us felt after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. (Many young people I've spoken with have never heard of the Soviet Union or the Cold War!) Back then, I thought that The Road Warrior was a far more likely outcome than Blade Runner.

Limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause worldwide destruction

Two items:

One from New Scientist.

And another courtesy of Wired Science.

In a nutshell:

Apart from the human devastation, a small-scale nuclear war between India and Pakistan would destroy much of the ozone layer, leaving the DNA of humans and other organisms at risk of damage from the Sun's rays, say researchers.

My take:

There is no such thing as 'limited' nuclear war. Any use of nuclear weapons, tactical, strategic or terrorist, clean or dirty, would be catastrophic. Along with environmental damage and human suffering, the global economy, international and cultural relations and the human psyche would all likely take dark turns. You think 9-11 changed everything? Nuclear war would be a whole new kettle of steaming awfulness.

I cannot fathom how someone could consider otherwise. I can understand how scientists and strategists would need to evaluate various scenarios, but to consider any of them as a workable option is insanity.

This may be the most important message science has delivered to us in recent years. By averting nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, we seem to have dodged a deadlier bullet than we had imagined.

In this post-Cold War and post-September 11 era we need to be ever wary of attitudes and policies that might leave this door unbarred.

It is to our credit that we haven't used nuclear weapons in anger since 1945. We should be proud and somewhat amazed. Let's keep the streak, and the planet alive.