8.28.2008

Hey people!



ELEVEN DAYS TO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Attention, eight year!

For the ones who missed class!

We closed unit 9 and moved to part of unit ten. The issue covered was basically was/were. There´s a lot of homework on the student book, that shall be corrected tomorrow.

8.25.2008

Crosswords!

Wanna try?
Click here.

And we´re still counting!

31 days , lads!

The Final LHC Synchronization Test is a Success, so in other words.....WAY TO GO!

Click here and find out more.

8.21.2008

So far, so good.

Well, have checked on some tests - I SAY CHECKED, NOT CORRECTED - and some people are doing good, some people improved, some people are still swimming the same sea...and will probably get drowned.

See you guys morrow.

8.20.2008

So you guys were afraid of LHC results, huh?

Watch this and have some real nightmares. Scientists have made a proto organic brain on a robot. In other words, this is a proto... CYBORG.

Ouch.

Eight year people

Guys, it´s simple. You have the notebook and all the review about verbs. You have the workbook, done and checked. You have the book and all explanations. You have this blog.

What´s between you and a good grade? Nothing!


See you tomorrow!

Test results.

No, you can´t have them.

8.19.2008

Remarks for tomorrow´s test!

Attention, 6th year people!

* Complete answers will be MANDATORY.
* Yes, spelling mistakes will be taken in account.

Good luck tomorrow!

8.16.2008

6th year issues.

 verb to be in all forms (affirmative, negative, interrogative)

 There is/ are X have/has

 Possessives

 Prepositions

There´s not much to study, then. Check your notebooks for details, read compositions, read what´s in this blog. In case you DON´T HAVE ANYTHING COPIED anywhere, I strongly suggest you ask a mate for his/her and take a nice photocopy. Ah! And read your photocopies, please. Never heard of students learning through osmosis...

The tests are coming.

Sixth year is the first. All books are checked, corrected and for the ones who couldn´t care less, the workbook key was sent home. 

I am really eager to hear the excuses some people will come with...

No, you can´t have blackholes.

When the LHC is activated, it is hoped that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson — named the God Particle — and its observation of which could confirm the predictions and 'missing gaps' in the Standard Model of physics, and explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. In other words, if they fill in the gaps, maybe all that God created world stuff will be, literally, story.

The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory which seeks to unify three of the four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why the remaining force, gravitation, is so weak compared to the other three forces.


Oooops! 

As with previous particle accelerators, people both inside and outside the physics community have voiced concern that the LHC might trigger one of several theoretical disasters capable of destroying the Earth or even the entire Universe. This has raised controversy as to whether any such risks outweigh the potential benefits of constructing and operating the LHC.

Though the standard model predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some nonstandard theories lower the requirements, and predict that the LHC will create tiny black holes, with potentially devastating consequences. The primary cause for concern is that Hawking Radiation - a postulated that says that any such black holes would dissipate before becoming dangerous, remains entirely theoretical. In academia, the theory of Hawking Radiation is considered plausible, but there remains considerable question of whether it is correct.

Other inferno scenarios say that:
* There will be creation of strange matter that is more stable than ordinary matter
* Creation of magnetic monopoles that could catalyze proton decay
* Creation of a strangelet

CERN has pointed out that the probability of such events is extremely small. One argument for the safety of colliders such as the LHC states that if the Earth were in danger of any such fate, the Earth and Moon would have met that fate billions of years ago due to their constant bombardment from space by protons, other particles, and cosmic rays, which are millions of times more energetic than anything that could be produced by the LHC.

Quantum calculations presented in the CERN report predict that:
* Any black holes created by the LHC are not expected to be stable and will not accrete matter.
* Any monopoles that could catalyse the decay of matter will quickly exit the Earth.

So, I say again, relax and enjoy.

24 days to go!

Black holes.

A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape from. The term "Black Hole" comes from the fact that, at a certain point, even electromagnetic radiation (e.g. visible light) is unable to break away from the attraction of them. This renders the hole's interior invisible or, rather, black like the appearance of space itself.

Despite its interior being invisible, a black hole may reveal its presence through an interaction with matter that lies in orbit outside its event horizon. For example, a black hole may be perceived by tracking the movement of a group of stars that orbit its center. Alternatively, one may observe gas (from a nearby star, for instance) that has been drawn into the black hole. It´s like, you see a star today and then...PUFF! It´s gone, but where to? Then you look closer and see it´s been happening with a lot of elements. A-HA! There may be a black hole there.

Is it the end of the world?

Nah, come on! As everyone knows, the LHC will finally be turned on in 24 days. Some people - probably the grandchildren of the people who said the Halley would fry us all - think that it will bring the end of the world.

Again, COME ON! The chances something as an uncontrolled black hole is of 0.08%. Let´s put it, it´s easier to get a billion pounds at the UK lottery than something go wrong. CERN has now a counter and also some good explanations.

What is the LHC?
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva and it´s about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the miniscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe. In other words, to hadrons from planets the world as we know will be seen completely different.

Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe. For decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only experimental data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge, and those who dare to dream beyond the paradigm.
So, there may be problems -click here to know more - but the risks a minimum, compared to what it will bring to science. Click here and see how big it is!
Let´s enjoy! If I could, I would be there! :-)
TWENTY FOUR DAYS TO GO AND STILL COUNTING!