Dear Friends,
They fired up the biggest machine ever built this week: the super collider in Switzerland, which is a 17-mile super cooled tunnel buried underground with thousands of computers and support gear. It is all designed as a particle accelerator to create particle collisions to test the “big bang” theory as the start of the universe.
The idea is to set two beams of protons traveling in opposite directions around the tunnel, redlining at the speed of light, generating wicked energy that will mimic the cataclysmic conditions at the beginning of time, then smashing into each other in a furious re-creation of the Big Bang… this time recorded by giant digital cameras.
They fired it up this week, but it will probably be months before the proton beams reach full power. Scientists don’t really know what will happen at full power when the collisions create something. There might spring forth black holes and the elusive thing that gives matter its mass. Or not! There might be particles called “strangelets” and evidence of “dark matter” and signs of “supersymmetry” and maybe a little antimatter. Real science or science fiction stuff. Lightspeed, anti-matter, black holes, and maybe even another dimension!
There is some fear that they might create an uncontrolled reaction and a huge black hole that will eat our planet.(!) The scientists scoff at this notion, and I sure hope they’re right! This collider is the smaller cousin of the ill-fated 54-mile collider that was to have been built in Texas. The Texas project was abandoned in 1993 after spending a few billion on it.
Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event produced iTunes 8 with new Genius features that I have just started to play with. I like the recommendations generated by my selection of a song in my library. That’s a good way to check out some music you haven’t heard before. I haven’t checked out what the Genius playlist features yet, but I like the idea! Oh yeah, there were new iPods, too. Lots of colorful nanos (I have to get a purple 16GB!) with some great new features. The iPod touch just keeps getting better and the thin 120GB iPod classic is a great value. There are even new brighter colors for the venerable iPod shuffle. Be sure to see our round-up of the new products below!