Thread:Comments:Large Hadron Collider collides particles at the force of seven mosquitos/Wow!/reply (25)

The "popcorn" here is someone spouting off repeated bollocks about, say, the bible having special bits in it that relate to cutting-edge science. In reality, some whack-job like the loon who saw a face on Mars, has joined all these genuinely unrelated numbers to fit some spectacular bollocks that desperate people buy (Think those who believe there's some deep meaning in Dan Brown's dross).

The bible, if you go through it, never cites Pi to any real accuracy. It does give the various area formulae about circles, but the number where we'd put pi is stridently asserted to be 3. Even at the time those particular texts were put down on paper, fractions were known and used. If I recall the rule-of-thumb approximation correctly, it would be 22/7; which, if calculated and compared to what we know about the irrational number pi, is at least two orders of magnitude more accurate than 3.

On that basis alone, I would completely dismiss the entire book as devoid of any scientific content or credibility.

Fermat's Last Theorem was a research project worthy of scientists' time, even though it is only alluded to as a margin note in one of his books. Looking for Fibonacci numbers in the bible is like looking for the number 22 bus on the Moon; someone with Photoshop, or, in the numbers case, a plan to make a quick buck on an idiotic book, will come along and tell you not to trust people doing real science.

Really, the bible for deeper answers to scientific questions? Saying the LHC is a waste of money? Asserting that Special Relativity, General Relativity, and Quantum Theory are "trivially" reconciled?

Only a complete fucking moron with no concept of the process of scientific research, the stark difference between a hypothesis and a theory (Hint: The latter is only applied to something provable by substantial evidence and repeatable experimentation; the former, a slightly-wild idea that might form the basis for a new theory).

BeerDrinker has been hoodwinked, conned, and bought a line of crap from charlatans with glossy hardbacks asserting all science is wrong, we're regularly visited by aliens, and that sort of crapola. He's one of those desperately seeking some proof of a deity or an outside guiding hand in human evolution.


 * It is highly improbable (to a 0.00000000000000000000000001% sort of probability) there is a divine being who can intervene and interfere with the classical macro-scale physics interactions we've spent more than a hundred years looking at and playing with.
 * The "interesting" stuff goes on at the sub-atomic level.
 * Doing the "interesting" stuff is, based on our current understanding of the universe, very expensive, and a high-cost, high-energy issue.
 * The LHC is waved away as "creating the conditions that existed very shortly after the birth of the universe"; it isn't.
 * It is creating some of the ultra-short-lived particles suspected to have existed at that time.
 * Repeated creation of these particles, and observation of their decay into more normal/classical particles is a prime goal.
 * With a good dataset, various hypotheses can be compared with what we see now in the visible background radiation.
 * Just like evolution, we can look for other ways to get data to work out how a tiny, superhot, young universe became what we see now. That is:
 * Devising repeatable experiments to simulate conditions expected in the rapid expansion period.
 * Using more powerful telescopes, and new observational techniques, to collect more detailed information about the history of the universe, as told by light and other radiation now reaching Earth or satellites & probes within out solar system.

The hoped-for end result is not, as some assert, a "Theory of Everything"; it is for a hypothesis to be promoted to a theory which covers a broader range of the events and interactions we've repeatedly observed in the universe - fixing the "exception clauses" and "special cases" where General Relativity, Special Relativity, and Quantum Theory break down.

Such a long response may seem like BeerDrinker's bollocks, and assertion we have nothing more to learn. If he gives me a phone number I will try and arrange for Richard Dawkins to call and tell him to back away from the bible and seek psychiatric help.