World ends
Please don't think me anti-science if I offer an enormous shrug about the fact that some physicists in Geneva working for an organisation whose initial letters don't actually match up with the name of the organisation made some particles go really fast in opposite directions around a 17-mile ring at nearly the speed of light in order to recreate in miniature the big bang, or a trillionth of a second after the big bang. Haven't they got better things to be doing with their time? People think I live in the past with my obsession with 1981, but these white-coated dreamers are nostalgic about the beginning of the universe, so much so that they want to recreate it in a big tube in Switzerland.
I was on the treadmill at the gym, causing some particles to go round and round, while poor old Sky News was trying to make all this seem terrifically exciting. They had a live feed from the lab in Geneva - as, I'm sure, all other news channels did - and Dermot Murnaghan had Professor Heinz Wolf in the studio showing how to blow up a mince pie with a mini-particle collider. (Can you imagine the meeting? "We need a scientist in the studio with Dermot, but a scientist idiots will have heard of. Who can we get?" "Hawking's too expensive." "Magnus Pyke is dead." "Is he?" "Yes." "What about Robert Winston?" "He's a fertility expert." "People have heard of him though." "Professor Pat Pending from Wacky Races?" "Too fictional but you're on the right lines." "Alright, Professor Heinz Wolf." "Nice one, Dominic." "What's next?") Then Sky had some text messages from members of the dreaded public, and one of them was along these lines: "I think it is good that they're doing this experiment as they might find out some things that will help us cure some diseases." That's right. That's why they're doing it.
I too crave a greater understanding, but of the Mitford sisters. And I don't cost you any money while I go about feeding that need for understanding.
The media have turned this experiment into an "event", and those nutters who predicted it would cause the universe to be sucked into a black hole made it almost exciting in the immediate run-up. But it's done now*. They've achieved something cosmic with a big machine. What's next?
*Actually it's not done. All they've done is turn it on, apparently.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 11:45 AM
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68 Comments:
I know you don't really want to know this, but it's not done now. Far from it. All they did this morning was to turn it on, and fire a few protons around it.
It's worth having a look at this article in The Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/10/lhc_day_is_not_today/
even if - particularly if - you're mistrusting of the media hype.
I thought that all they've done today is turn it on and send some particals around the loop one way? On the BBC radio news there was some guy (scientist?) saying that the particals were "exactly where they should be...err, nearly exactly where they should be" - oh that's alright then, spending billions to get something NEARLY in the right place.
Lee.
Oh Andrew honey, no. No.
If it helps, think of it as the kind of 'posh arts' funding that Gaunty might rail against, except for techies.
And if they do discover more about how the very fabric of the universe works, it won't put homeopathy and crystals and astrologers and all that sort of stuff out of business, so not to worry.
Sorry, did someone just call me "honey"?
Please note I normally hate physics and shrug heavily despite being heartily pro sensible science.
Damn those crazy physicists trying to find out how the universe works - damn them all to hell!
CERN stands for the name of the institution in French. Based, as it is, in Geneva. They do have other languages in Europe, apart from English. Unless you were just being glib, which is beneath you, to be honest.
And of course they don't have anything "better" to do with their time. They're particle physicists. In their field, this is the biggest and best thing they can do with their time.
You may as well as Guillermo Del Toro whether he couldn't be doing something better with his time than making expensive CGI moving pictures about fantastical creatures - it would be just as relevant.
[And I'm not saying that we should do away with them, just that you can apply the same arguments to the arts as YOU do to this experiment.]
In fact, while you may not understand the science behind the LHC (and neither do I), these guys at CERN are at least contributing to the understanding of space, time, matter and the universe.
They're not trying to "recreate" the big bang, per se. They're trying to find traces of an extremely hard-to-find theoretical particle, and the sort of energetic reactions that are required are similar to those found back then.
It may seem like esoteric knowledge to you, but 100 years ago Einstein's theories on relativity were seen as esoteric and with no "real-world" applications. Yet we wouldn't have GPS Sat-Navs without those theories - well, we might have, but they wouldn't work. And while you may argue that YOU don't have a car and don't use Sat Nav, the worlds of international air and sea travel would grind to a halt without it.
If the media coverage has seemed over the top, that's because calm debate and balanced reasoning are out of the window in all spheres of the media nowadays. It's not the fault of the scientists doing the work.
Science is about explaining how our world works the way it does. If you don't like it, maybe you'd have been happier living in the 13th century.
They've gone loopy for it over here in Sweden as well. One of the tabloids is running a 'WEB TV! Watch the doomsday machine create a blackhole LIVE' bit on its website which is pretty good going...
The ultimate irony of the whole kaboodle is that the CERN project developed the World Wide Web in the first place that is now allowing this bizarre 'it's the end of the world OMG look at this huge machine they will kill us all' thing to spread to the point where it is reported as news - as well as allowing what appears to be half the world's population to post 'I think there are better things to do with the money while there are people starving' on forums.
PT, thank you for supplying exactly the response I was angling for. (I'm being sincere - I was hoping someone who knows more about it than me would put me in my place.) And yes, I was being glib about CERN - glibness is one of the lightest weapons in my armoury, which is why I use it so often!
My beef, as always, is not with scientists, but with the media - of which I am part, hence the crazy, mixed-up nature of my rantings.
Oh, and I accept that it's not over yet and the world may still end when they really get going with it. I just heard Mark Goodier read out an email on Smooth radio from a listener who called all her family at 7.30 this morning to tell them she loves them, in case the world ended at 8.30 - which, it turns out, it was never going to. What time is it going to end then?
There is a nice irony in criticising this kind of stuff from a laptop, powered by electricity, on the internet etc.
These nerds are hereos whos tireless endevour to find stuff out indirectly gives us great toys.
I slept through the whole event, so even if we had all disappeared up our hole at least it would have been painless.
I have to say, I find quantum physics just about the most fascinating subject around. As Nils Bohr said 'If youre not confused by quantum physics, you havent understood it properly'
Like all Zen masters, he loved a good paradox.
Give them time to fuck up the world though Andrew, theyve hardly got started. I remember the same concens being voiced about nanotechnology 'eating' the matter of the universe. hasnt happened yet, but again give them time. I think some healthy worst-case scenario fear is appropriate when youre doing something so radical though.
Yes, someone did call you honey. If its any consolation I believe it was a woman. Or it may just have been Omar calling from beyond the grave. Dead fictional characters talking to you? Far far stranger things happen in quantum physics every day of the week.
The world is going to end in August in 2012 so we can save on the money it's going to cost us for Olympic fireworks. Sod your made-up fireworkey footprints, China, we've got the biggest bang of all in our ceremony! And it's also going to end then because Nostradamus said so.
This LHC stuff IS very exciting. It's just very boring to watch. Like, if you think about HOW paint dries, it's actually really interesting. It's just really boring to watch. It's a readey thing rather than a lookey thing. And a we-didn't-learn-enough-
science-at-school-to-understand-or-
give-a-crap thing. Which is why we lag behind as inventors these days, relatively speaking.
Anna
I don't object per se to being called "honey", by man or woman - I've just never been called it before! (Actually, a withering "honey" wouldn't be very nice, but it's hard to divine the emphasis on the page.)
Don't be too hard on the sky news text people - the Daily Express was also trying to suggest that this would cure cancer. Somehow.
I think it's probably a good thing - this has directed a lot of government funding away from other research, which normally would be spent on finding ways to kill people. This is quite a nice use of money, really, and 100 nations working together on research has to be a good thing. They're not going to use it to kill anyone, are they, as they'd have a hard time persuading the enemy to clamber into a hole underground in Geneva and wait a few weeks while they power the thing up.
Still, kudos to Andrew Marr on Radio 4 for his live commentary. I wouldn't have been able to stop myself going "what... the ... OH MY GOD!" when they switched it on.
And, honey, where's yer Maestro blog? Good, weren't it?
Anna
If you want to know the real deal. The story behind the story. http://www.youtube.com/user/gorilla199 will enlighten you all.
These "white coated dreamers" want to learn more about the universe we live in. They want to know why things have mass (is it the Higgs Boson?). They want to know why most of what constitutes the universe hasn't been detected (dark matter?). They're curious, they want to learn and understand, and whilst there might not be anything currently "useful" coming out of this, we don't know where this will lead in future.
When Maxwell was developing the equations for the relationship between electricity and magnetism nobody thought it would ever be useful, just something of interest for curious minds. Where would we be today without it? (hint: we certainly wouldn't by typing messages onto a blog on the internet!)
There was a great interview with Stephen Hawking on the Today programme yesterday, where he was saying that the most exciting thing that could happen would be for them to NOT find the Higgs Boson, as that would lead to so many new questions to explore and answer.
The media are essentially rubbish at anything to do with science, and this whole "end of the world" debacle is a perfect example of that. There had to be a "controversy" angle to it somewhere, so they find the odd crank who thinks it will end the world and give equal weight to his views as to those scientists who actually know their arse from their elbow.
There was a great quote from a physicist working on ALICE (one of the two main detectors on the LHC) called Brian Cox (former keyboard player with D:Ream) who said:
"Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the work is a twat!"
I see where he's coming from, but would change that to "Any journalist who claims the LHC could destroy the world is a twat!" (and an irresponsible one at that!) A colleague of mine told me today that his daughter was in floods of tears yesterday because she thought the end of the world was nigh. Now clearly she isn't a twat, but I would argue that those in the media that have led her to believe that are.
I've read the odd Daily Fail article online about this, and the readers' comments afterwards are truly bizarre. A recurring theme seems to be along the lines of "They're running this expensive experiment and they don't even know what the outcome is going to be. What's the point?"... errr, that IS the whole point of it. Indeed, what would the point be if we did know exactly what would happen? Science is about discovery. Testing our ideas and developing our understanding.
Anyway, as Stever pointed out above, they haven't yet collided any particles. They're currently running the proton beams around the accelerator to test that it works. They will then need to run them in the other direction, and once that's been done they can start the experiment proper and actually start the collisions.
If you want a good overview of what the LHC experiments are all about then I'd recommend this 15 minute video by Brian Cox: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6uKZWnJLCM Entertaining, interesting and engaging.
This stuff is more beautiful, more amazing and more "magical" than I think you realise. And what's more, it's real!
Andrew honeybunch,
I think it's a good thing. Everything about it. The scientists have a bit of a laugh making things blow up (the world, maybe) and we get a sort of rollercoaster scaredy feeling as the thing trips to the top and we wonder what'll happen as it goes over the edge.
Meanwhile, we should all be like the 7.30am - I love you kids - lady - living in constant existential despair that we're going to die any minute. Personally, I'm off to swim with some dolphins while I've still got the chance. Then if the world is still working, I'm going to have a cheese n pickle sandwich and then phone all the people I hate just to let them know. It's a 100 things you must do before you die moment - that's how I'm looking at it, honey...
Here's my 'this-is-why' explanation for nonscientists. It's quite speculative but it gets the essential reason to be excited:
LHC experiments lead to understanding of mass.
Understanding of mass leads to understanding of gravity.
Understanding of gravity leads to ability to manipulate gravity.
Ability to manipulate gravity leads to Back-To-The-Future-II-style hoverboards
Honestly, what more could you want?
This is easily my favourite ever back-and-forth of blog comments ever, physicists on one side, comedy responses on the other. Keep them coming honeys!
It's exciting because if they find the Higgs boson, then they are correct, Hawking deserves a Nobel prize and physics is finished. If it's not there, then everything is wrong and physics needs to start again.
The science of black holes decrees that if they are created here, they will evaporate. You can't have one without the other.
Pics here apparently http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14699
(sorry to repeat, I've got lost and I'm stubborn)
It's scientific discovery, asking questions about the nature of things and being inquisitve which allow us to understand the nature of things. For instance, thanks to science, we know that water doesn't have a memory and homeopathy is errant nonsense.
Ah, I know now why you're against such scientific discovery!
Cheers
Rick
Don't worry about the scientists looking for a really small bison, Mrs Thompson reckons Dr Who will be able to save us if it all goes wrong...
Anna/Andrew:
GOLDIE WAS ROBBED. I don't mind Sue Perkins, even if I'm getting a bit sick of her being on everything and now she's won she's likely to be on even more stuff - I hear she fancies a spot of film reviwing Andrew!
But GOLDIE WAS ROBBED.
You were right Andrew. leave it to the orchestra and they'd have chosen Goldie on the basis that he was obviously the best. Leave it to the punters and they vote for a whole variety of other unknown reasons.
First my main man going in The Wire and now this. Hurry up LHC and finish me off.
Poor Sky News. If the world was to end, they'd not have time to put a 'Breaking News' bannershriek. That must be a galling thought for them.
Needless to say, I'm rather disappointed nothing's happened. Yet.
Forget the Maestro blog. What about the bizarre programme last night with Kate Garroway travelling the world to watch women breast feed. Strangely compelling to watch her taste the milk of a woman she'd just watched express it into a bottle! Oddest thing I've seen in a long time!
How does stuff like this get commissioned, for crissakes?
Andrew,
I must make a few points:
Yes perhaps there was a bit of media hype at the launch of the LHC, and you're right that no interesting results have come out yet.. but it has the opportunity for so much.
The World Wide Web was a side project by a scientist at CERN, Tim Bernes Lee. If it wasn't for that you wouldn't have had this website, and the whole amazing interactivity and ease of communication that we have benefited from the web would not have occurred.
It is the unexpected results from a project like this that are the most exciting.
Most amazing discoveries have happened by accident when people were looking for something else. The developments at CERN could have untold benefits.
Also, it isn't just accdientally uncovered applications by CERN like the world wide web that have great benefits. Its also due to the understanding of physics that the work of CERN generates.
Take the Ipod. That could not exist without an understanding of quantum theorey. High density harddiscs which are at the heart of an ipod could not have been produced without a clear understanding of what is happening at a nanometre scale and this was only provided by research physicits around the world of which CERN played a major part.
The cost of CERN is very low for the average taxpayer - in fact the cost to the UK as a whole is about the same as running a couple of tube stations, and is less per person per year than half a pint of beer.
* * *
Yes, there was a lot of fanfare for an event that was largely symbolic. There was no major new discoveries today, and there is unlikely to be for several months.
But ti was a symbolic event, and ocver the next few years we are likely to benefit from the advances in understanding that come as a result of this.
There are at least two inventions that have come as a direct result of the increased understanding of science brought by CERN - the world wide web, and high desity discs that form the basis of ipods that you benefit from directly Andrew.
Your podcast is much more accessible due to the iPod. Your audience has increased due ti the web. Both of these inventions have had a direct benefit to your career.
The LHC gives us an opportunity to better understand the world and thus create a better world.
My normally sensible wife nearly didn't let my son go to school this morning for fear she would never see him again.....not a strain of behaviour seen since she bought rather too many Emerson Lake & Palmer albums in the 80s....but I notice she didn't question my leaving for work....
The best bit about this whole shebang will be the media backlash in about a week when the Daily Mail realises that £4 billion has not uncovered the meaning of existence in 7 days. Who is to blame? Who must resign? ....
Can we all call you honey? What about sweetie pie?
How about sugarlips?
Aaaanyway, I came across a post on another forum which I think sums thinks up really well:
It's very interesting, and rather depressing, to note how the coverage of the LHC has ticked every single box of poor science reporting in the media.
They have, in short order -
- whipped up unnecessary scares based on, effectively, mad theories by one maverick
- presented scientists as amoral, detached boffins who are arbitarily tinkering with Forces They Ought Not To Tinker With
- largely sidelined these experts (unless they've said something amusing) in favour of the usual parade of uninformed talking heads
- to a greater or lesser extent flaunted scientific ignorance as a badge of pride (check out Stuart Jeffries article in the Guardian today for a good example of simpering 'science-is-hard' nonsense)
It is great that the big story of the week is about particle physics. But, really, it's actually about the fact that humans are inherently curious and how many cool things we can do to find things out, and the amount of really, really basic stuff we don't know.
If we're not trying to find out new stuff, then we're just wasting our time being alive. Completely wasting it.
As a lasped physicist it is rather bizarre to come home of an evening and find the power-up of a bit of particle physics kit is the top story.
To second one of the ealy post, theregister.co.uk has a good arctile debunking osme of the "doomsday LIVE!" media hype. Most of it seems to be 90% bad sci-fi, 5% nihilism, 3% catastrophie theory and 2% Half-Life video game.
Being a child of the 80's it would have been really fantatstic if the boffins at CERN could have hired Messers Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis to re-enact the lift scene from 'Ghostbusters'for the start-up:
"I've just realised. We've never had a completely successful of this equipment..."
Although the cure for diseases comment sounds stupid (and kind of is), particle physics (and Paul Dirac in particular) gave us positrons which were initially fanciful and unbelievable. Now they are applied daily in PET scanners in hospitals and do good work in supporting medical diagnoses. While LHC won't of itself come up with such applications the science it stimulates will.
As for the media coverage, in spite of its inadequacies I'm sure there will be many young kids who will now be inspired to pursue science as a career. In my day it was Michael Rodd and Raymond Baxter, today its Brian Cox and to me, in a world of WAGs, Becks and Paris, the existence of a kind-of-cool clever clogs role model cheers me up no end.
Anyway sugarplum - a good post that's stimulated some good comments.
Tut tut, Andrew. Don't you realise that without science you wouldn't be wearing socks? And stuff. And kids who aren't yet cognisant of consonants let alone D:Ream, and who don't even know how to plug in headphones, wouldn't be able keep us all entertained with their Pinky-and-Perky-like banging Eurohouse as we're carried to our workstations by combustion engines that aren't irrevocably changing the weather systems of our planet in a wholly foreseeable manner. There wouldn't even be any Pinky-and-Perky-like Eurohouse if someone hadn't wondered what would happen if you mixed a little of the DNA of a pig with a bottle of fake tan. And fake tan itself was an unexpected bi-product of an otherwise wholly unsuccessful attempt to turn human piss and shit into self esteem.
Hell, imagine a world where you couldn't sample the first 30 seconds or so of one Pinky and Perky track before skipping straight to the next one (sometimes with a - thankfully - short pause) and saying something akin to, "Oh I really like this one," and then skipping to the next one 10 seconds later. After all, the intros are usually the best bit because the Pinky and Perky voices often don't continue through the whole track and you lose int... Oh this one's good.
So really, you see, no time is ever wasted because it all just adds up to progress, progress, progress. Or alternatively, no time is wasted because we all die eventually and it makes no difference what you do with your time, so you might as well spend it doing whatever you enjoy doing. And that might be firing particles around big tubes. Or it might just be throwing the occasional pebble into the pond and seeing what interesting ripples you can make. Keep doing the latter.
The media reporting of this is pretty much on a par with the reporting of the Westminster circus, the markets, the weather, and everything else. The scary thing is that when they're talking about stuff you don't know anything about, a lot of it seems vaguely credible. It's all bollocks, isn't it?
Sorry to drag the subject down to gutter level but I've just watched one of the youtube links from above and Brian Cox is hot! He's even hotter than Dr Iain Stewart and the psychology dude from Wife Swap. (What can I say, I like my science nerd guys.)
Sorry, back to the proper science stuff now...
Deb Holt
It really is not that surprising that media types report any science and tech so abysmally. Many of them don't even know the difference between science and technology... Which is like not knowing the difference between art and paint (or different coloured turds, or melted lego bricks, etc)
University Challenge, par example:
Jeremiah Paxoid: Philip Johnson called him "a peasant mannerist"..
Bzzz
"Farnquah, Trinity"
Farquah: Walter Gropius?
Jeremaih Paxoid: No. Anybody from King's? No? Come on! You are all pitiful stupid little shits who have learned nothing in your pathetic existence. It was Marcel Breuer of course! Ok...Starter for ten... Chemistry: Aceeet...all..deee...hyde is the immediate meta..bowl..ite of which....
bzzz
"Jenkins, Kings"
Jenkins: ethanol
Paxoid: Well done!
------
Tim
Hey, what's all this knocking me because of my career being furthered by the Internet? If it wasn't there, maybe more people would read my books instead? And I used to make tapes wit my friend Paul when I was a teenager and they were very funny and we sometimes played them to our friends and that was fun. If the tape records hadn't have existed, we might have put on plays. I refuse to accept that because I'm typing on a machine that wasn't invented once and writing to you people using a thing that wasn't invented once, I have to bow down and give thanks to all scientists. If it wasn't here, I wouldn't be using it, and I might have better handwriting. And we might not have bred a whole generation of kids who aren't fully socialised and don't know how to communicate with real people in real life. I blame CERN for that. I do have a car but I will never have sat-nav, as for the most part, it is stopping us from using our brains like we used to. If cars weren't invented, I'd walk, or ride a horse. I wouldn't mind living before the Industrial Revolution actually. Life was short, but at least we knew how to bake bread and have a dance in a barn.
It can all get really silly though, "scientists" have always discovered things that makes life easier, if not better. At some point it would be the nerds that discovered everything we take for granted, including really early discoveries and inventions, while other people were content with things as they were. We don't dissect what they did and what it meant, we simply accept the outcome.
I think Michael Faraday was pretty damned marvellous and I don't think I'd be all that happy to give up all things electrical, but that doesn't mean I need an in depth understanding of what he did and how he did it. I say this because I have no understanding whatsoever of what he did and how he did it.
Just because something is important doesn't mean everyone has to be excited about the ins and outs of it. I guess very few people care much about the brilliance of Puffin crossings, but I don't think they're ungrateful and should be run over.
There's always a sense of loss when technology takes over. The thing I miss most is letter writing, noone writes letters any more unless they want money from you, and letters are so much nicer than emails and text messages. Even Christmas cards contain hateful word processed newsletters (why would you send a newsletter to your friends?) instead of a handwritten note.
My word to type here is "rybishpc", I reckon that's blogger's official stance on the subject.
I happen to know that the world DID end at 8.30 yesterday morning. We all passed through a black hole into an alternative universe. It's just a bit of a shame that it's exactly the same as the old one in every way. And after all that build-up. Sheesh.
so, it seems a 16 year old girl in India has committed suicide over this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1054434/Indian-girl-16-killed-fears-Big-Bang-experiment-lead-end-world.html
Can I just say what utter, UTTER, cunts some sections of the media have been over this. There was simply no need for this to happen if the reporting of it had been more responsible.
And Andrew, I find it very hard to believe that you genuinely would prefer to live in pre-industrial revolution times. Perhaps as a member of the aristocracy things might have been quite nice, but the idea that everything was hunkey dorey, everyone was much nicer etc etc. is romanticising it somewhat, don't you think?
Besides, what would you have used to cure yourself of all those illnesses you'd get, given that homeopathy wasn't invented until the 18th Century?
My point, Tristan, is that if things weren't invented, we'd get on without them. And I do seriously believe that industrialisation is to blame for what will be the ultimate demise of the human race. Progress is not always a good thing. And I am allowed to say that while typing it into a laptop. We have invented ourselves into a very precarious position. Some believe that science will save us from ourselves. I doubt it.
Still, the media, eh? Idiots.
Congratulations Andrew.
Half your readership are calling you 'honey' and 'sweetiepie.' the other half wants you dead. That's modern-day celebrity for you.
I agree over progress. I think we've caught the American fascination that everything new is automatically better. A quick analysis of many of these 'advances' throws up as many problems as advantages - as you've highlighted.
Surely, the idea of progress in the proper sense is to have the freedom and the awareness as a society to decide whether we think a new idea or invention useful or not before we incorporate it into our lives.
We invent a robot hoover that does the work for us. With the time and energy we've saved we jump in the car, drive down to the gym and stand on a machine making hoover movements. Why not just hoover? Well, someone has obviously made a lot of money from selling us both gyms and robot hoovers.
This has nothing to do with the LHC, by the way. I'm all for it. My generation's version of the Moon Landings and as ever, many great things will come indirectly from these specky uber-geeks explorations - hopefully time-travel.
I have already bought my silver catsuit in anticipation.
Anti progress: All the people who want to step back in time I presuming you want to live in the feudal system that went with it. So no access to education, reading, fair legal system etc just work in the fields (for someone else) while it's light and then bed, chuck in tooth extraction without pain relief hideous numbers of women dieing in childbirth, random religous laws to live by etc and all barn dances are crap sounds great.
I think I'm just harking back to innocence. It's an impossible dream. You can't recreate innocence. Innocence has been trampled underfoot. We have to work with what we've got, sadly.
"I wouldn't mind living before the Industrial Revolution actually. Life was short, but at least we knew how to bake bread and have a dance in a barn."
I know how to bake bread, and if I don't know how to barn dance it's because I've seen people doing it and it's shit.
It seems to me what you are harking back to isn't innocence as such, more ignorance. Of course "progress" isn't some onward march towards the Land of Better, but equally it's ridiculous to believe a world where the common folk were poor, sick and downtrodden in ways we hardly see in our country today was some golden age.
It's a tricky one didn't the garden of eden only get interesting when the snake appeared!?
You can't have innocence and knowledge. Wherever we strive to learn, we lose innocence. If you had never learned about the world, you would be as innocent as a child, but you would be naive and vulnerable.
Nostalgia's lovely, but it does tend to focus on the positive and gloss over the negatives.
This is more fun than I ever imagined it might be when I wrote the entry about the particles. For the record, I am not being "nostalgic" for a life in pre-industrial times, as I can't remember it, I have only seen it in dramatised form on the telly. I don't hanker to live in a specific year or even century, nor do I yearn for a time when "common folk were poor, sick and downtrodden", although, ironically, common folk are still poor, sick and downtrodden, aren't they? They just have bigger televisions.
So, nobody's with me that a simpler life is a better life? You must all think we are living in a golden age now. I do not. I think we're stressed out, malnourished, sliding into a catatonic state and as removed from the political system as we ever were in feudal Britain. The rich are still rich. The poor are still poor. And then there's that glut of people in the middle who keep capitalism rolling by "aspiring" to have bigger and better things.
And dancing in a barn was a symbolic image of smaller communities doing community-based things to entertain themselves, which also involved social interaction. But you knew that already.
surely you meant overnourished not malnourished?
Aha! No! Because "malnourished" means badly nourished, which means not enough of the right nutrients. You can eat shit food and get fat, thus you are malnourished.
A simpler life would mean the removal of a lot of stresses. I was talking the other day about the fact that our generation particularly has a massive need for "more", whatever you have, you need bigger, better, more. A better job, a bigger house, more holidays, more shoes, better gadgets etc, etc. Noone ever seems to be content with what they do have, which compared to our ancestors is an amazing amount of things.
(I managed to be content with my lot after this conversation, It lasted less than a day. I'm beyond redemption).
If we could get some sort of middle ground whereby we didn't constantly strive to have more of everything, we would probably all be infinitely happier. To imagine living in a time where aims were less material, if nothing else, does sound rather nice.
MD, interesting thoughts, but I'd argue that one of the reasons people want more these days is because, generally speaking, they can have more.
People were content with what they had in the past because there was simply no way they could ever even consider having more. The class structure was so rigid that there was simply no way to progress. If you were born a peasant you would die a peasant, so what was the point of wanting anything else if you could never have it?
Now, I'm not saying that we have a perfectly egalitarian society today, but I'd argue that it's probably a lot more so than it was 200 or 300 years ago. People have more opportunities now, and so it's suddenly becomes more realistic to think that one day that big house, nice holiday, big car etc. might be yours. I think it's part of the human condition to think that way.
So, how do we get everyone to be happy with what they have? I think the only way is to say - "Tough. That's you're lot, like it or lump it. How absurd to think that you could ever have more".
I don't think that's a society I'd like to live in.
Andy honey, I agreed with you. Dont diss the mingles, babe.
I agree with the great Mark Tully on Radio 4.
He said - change the phrase from 'standard of living' to 'quality of life' and many simple villagers in india (who arent all starving despite the media impression) would beat us hands-down: being part of a community, old people and children looked after by friends and family, locally-grown produce, physical work, continuity etc etc
Apparently the machine didn't work at first but did after they turned it off and on again. Little did the scientists realise, understand why that happens and why most commenters on blogs are geminis and you understand all.
tristan, I do specifically think that this is an affliction of our generation, there is an expectation that if we don't have marriage, children, career, 2 cars, 5 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and seven holidays a year, that we have somehow failed. It's a lot.
I don't believe most people want what they actually want, they want what they think they should have. And in the relentless pursuit of this, they fail to enjoy the things they have already got.
Andrew,
Interesting. Indulge me. Please explain to us - WITHOUT looking at wikipedia or anything else for that matter - or asking Stuart - what you think science is. Give us the Andrew Collins definition of science.
Tim
"There are 10 types of people - those who understand binary and those who don't."
Was the "or asking Stuart" line supposed to be a dig? Or a joke.
If the latter, I shall continue. If the former, ouch! That put me in my place!
Andrew,
Do you think irony mean "like iron"?
Please continue.
Tim
oh, but it does...
I"ron*y (?), a. [From Iron.]
1.
Made or consisting of iron; partaking of iron; iron; as, irony chains; irony particles.
[R.]
Woodward.
2.
Resembling iron taste, hardness, or other physical property.
© Webster 1913.
I"ron*y (?), n.[L. ironia, Gr. dissimulation, fr. a dissembler in speech, fr. to speak; perh. akin to E. word: cf. F. ironie.]
1.
Dissimulation; ignorance feigned for the purpose of confounding or provoking an antagonist.
2.
A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words.
© Webster 1913.
I can't believe that I've been religiously skipping all your posts on the wire (I've just finished season 1).... only to read a bloody spoiler on the comments here!
Gah!
Curse you charliemingles.
Curse you.
Not you Andrew. You're okay, honey.
ST
Apolgies swisstoni.
But if you read Andrew's post properly you'll see he does issue a warning:
Let's talk about the big twist in the comments. (If you don't want spoilers, read no further. I have deliberately refrained from running a picture clue. It's better not to have an inkling.)
Sorry though.
Charlie
xxx
I thought Hadrons where dinosaurs. I was looking forward to dinosaurs being smashed together at near the speed of light. Its turns out they are called Hadrasaurs. Perhaps if they don't find the Higgs particle using protons they will move on to dinosaurs next.
Andypoos, you are a silly. The simpler life you are harking back to never existed.
Throughout history people have suffered stresses and complications in life. All that changes with time is the form these take, the triggers of these hardships.
There's a sort of irony to be enjoyed in the idea that someone could read Andrew's blog entry and then ask him if he knows what irony is.
I visited East Park in Hull today for the first time. A beautiful sunny day and a fantastic place to spend it. At one point I found I'd become part of a group of people - all strangers to each other - that was enjoying the spectacle of a dog that kept jumping into the model boats pool even though it couldn't get out without its owner's help. It's hard to convey the pleasure we derived from every, "Oh, for fuck's sake!" uttered by the owner. Well, you probably had to be there: in a well-maintained public space (that still has a model boats pool!) with a bunch of strangers who had nothing in common except that they were there and they were willing to let their guards down and enjoy themselves. Even the dog owner was smiling.
I hope this isn't entirely irrelevant. I could say stuff about how all we really want is to be loved and to feel valued, and yet we're building a society (or rather destroying one) in which we're becoming increasingly insular and where we can only judge our worth by what we can afford to buy (the two are related). As if owning a bigger TV is somehow going to make someone need us more, or prove that our boss can see just how good we are. I could mention the apparently ever-increasing number of people who are just seething with rage, who seem to believe that the worst thing that could happen to them is that they might lose face - that someone might "disrespect" them by treating them like they're just the same as everyone else. I could say that it seems to me that the adult population is becoming increasingly infantile - adults who've never learnt that the world doesn't revolve around them because they've never really found their place in a wider community, and who just want things - toys - because other people have got them.
But none of that is anyone's fault, is it? No one ever said there was no such thing as society. No one ever thought that "every man for himself" was the way forward. No one believed it wasn't the state's job to intervene until people had actually fallen off the ladder. No one would actually believe that a free market approach would improve public services and improve accountability for those services. Well if there ever was such a person, I bet he never trained as a scientist.
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Tee hee.
Hi Andrew,
I'm not sure what the "ask Stuart" thing is all about, but I think the question Tim raises about what you think science actually is would be an interesting one to get an answer on, if you have time.
I'm genuinely interested in knowing your thoughts on this.
Cheers
Tris
Science is a subject I was never very good at, at school. I never got on with physics and dropped it before O-levels; I got a C at chemistry O-level but only through memorising experiments and the periodic table (still never saw the point of it), and I failed biology at A-level. (I actually liked biology - the human body, photosynthesis, seaweed - but it didn't like me. I only did it because you had to do three.)
I didn't get on with history at school, either (I got a U at O-level), but have found myself fascinated by it in adult life.
Hi Andrew,
that's an interesting answer. Do correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that you see science as being about memorising facts, tables etc. That's a common misconception. The general public seems to see science as being about facts being handed down didactically by authority figures. It's not seen as being about discovery, finding out new things (as opposed to developing new things - that's technology, not science).
A good example of that attitude can be seen in some comments people have been leaving on various news "Have your say" type pages about the LHC experiment, along the lines of "If the scientists don't know exactly what the outcome will be then what's the point of doing it?".
You say you have an interest in history. I guess the analogy would be the assumption that histroy is just about remembering dates. If you can remember the order and dates of all the monarchs then you're a historian. As I'm sure you'll agree, it's a little bit more complicated that that.
Tristan,
Well said that man. Science is a method of being brutally honest with yourself and everyone else, nothing more and nothing less. It's the ultimate reality check.
Finding out which design of water wheel provides maximum torque to provide the most effective drive for the grinding wheel of a watermill in Andrew's utopian society (Andrew, have you been watching "Witness" recently or something?) is science. Obviously, possession of wheat would be a capital offence.
I am reminded of Derren Brown's anecdote when a major proponent of homeopathy said that he couldn't see the point of double-blind crossover clinical trials for his alleged medicines, because "it never works".
I also chuckled at the observation that a homeopath suggested that if your (say) headache isn't relieved after taking one homeopathic tablet, take three. Hmmm....
Dave, I am fully aware of Andrew's steely grasp of irony.
Tim
Two words: oat milk. Without science there would be no oat milk. You can't have oat milk without this sort of thing as well, and I happen to feel 'this sort of thing' is the most worthwhile way we can advance human knowledge. It's loads better than religion, or banking, or I Love 1981 media.
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