switch on. After watching "the big bang machine" on I am loving the LHC at CERN and all the paranoia and actual general science attached to todaysBBCfour last week and grinning like a cheshire cat all the way through it (due to something to occupy my intellectual appetite at last, and a very long and altitude induced conversation on the inca trail with pequenopicklo of blog fame about string theory and the big 'what's out there'), I quickly became obsessed with the theory and experiments that the team were going to be looking in to.
Today was switch on day for the machine. Many media companies (here i point the finger at radio1 among others) reported this fact with the tag line "is this the end of the world?" Quite clearly not!! but fun to think so anyway! The chance of the scientists creating a black hole was most likely, however the black holes (thanks here to Mr Hawking for helping me understand this) would disappear quicker than they would register so again... the world would not end. I quite liked my Dad's take on this... (this is what he sent me as a response to my over excitement at discovering this experiment was going to take place)
"I have to say that while it is interesting stuff I get worried about science that makes predictions and then invents experiments to prove the theory. It's a bit like in flat earth days no-one noticed that sails slowly sink below the horizon. Interesting mad world philosophy - the world changes to support the theories being tested!"
Well said Dad!
So after today's switch on and the mass hysteria I have felt the scientists impact in my little life. At school today i went out to collect my children after break, only to discover one girl (remember i teach year 6 here) in hysterical tears. Apparently she had been like this most of break ... because, yes you guessed it, ... she thought the world was going to end! I looked her in disbelief and summoned all the sympathy i could muster and promptly called her a numpty. My exact words were "stop being a numpty and listen. they switched the machine on at 8am this morning, and it is now 11am. Do you not think if the world was going to end, it would have happened already?!"
To which she replied (between snot and sobs),
"but you don't understand, my mum would have died"
I pointed out that so would she have, and to stop being such an idiot and get into numeracy. Clearly sympathy is not a strong point, but i really have no time for irrational thought of 10 year olds and rainy yorkshire days.
Anyway, thought i should share this momentous day and its annoyances and ponderings, and thank you for reading this. If you have read this it means the world still has not combusted and i am still living in blissful overwork as a teacher and writing inane drivel on the Internet!
Love you all!
INTI xx
1 comment:
So just to clarify...the world did not end?!
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