Physics Final Exam

Friday, May 30, 9:00 am - 11:00 am in the gymnasium. You may not leave before 10:30 am.

What Really Goes On At The LHC

So what, exactly, does the Large Hadron Collider do?

Why do we need it?

In this presentation from TED.com, physicist Brian Cox explains what we hope to accomplish with the LHC experiments.

End Day

Imagine waking up to the last day on Earth.

So begins End Day, a 2005 docu-drama produced by the BBC that depicts various doomsday scenarios. The documentary follows the fictional scientist Dr. Howell as he travels from his London hotel room to his laboratory in New York City, and shows how each scenario affects his journey as well as those around him, with various experts providing commentary on that specific disaster as it unfolds.

Inspired by the predictions of scientists, End Day creates apocalyptic scenarios that go beyond reality. In a single hour, the film explores five different fictional disasters, from a giant tsunami hitting New York to a deadly meteorite strike on Berlin.

Of particular interest in the final scenario, the only one wherein Dr. Howell reaches his laboratory unhindered. Upon arrival, he and his colleagues initiate a highly controversial experiment using the world's largest particle accelerator. The experiment quickly goes out of control, resulting in the creation of a new type of matter called a strangelet, which begins to consume and destroy all matter around it. The phenomenon wreaks havoc on Earth's weather systems and atmosphere, insinuating that the entire planet will eventually be destroyed.

A similar controversy currently surrounds an experiment planned at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) located in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is a circular particle accelerator 27 km (17 miles) in circumference, buried on average 110 m (360 ft) below ground. Concerns have been raised that performing collisions at previously unexplored energies might unleash new and disastrous phenomena. These include the production of micro black holes and strangelets, potentially resulting in a doomsday scenario. If strangelets can actually exist, and if they were produced at LHC, they could conceivably initiate a runaway fusion process in which all the nuclei in the planet were converted to strange matter, similar to a strange star. According to Dr. Frank Close, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford,"The chance of this happening is like you winning the major prize on the lottery three weeks in succession. The problem is that people believe it is possible to win the lottery three weeks in succession."

On 21 March 2008 a complaint requesting an injunction against the LHC's startup was filed before the US District Court of Hawaii by a group of seven concerned individuals. The restraining order is a demand for an injunction of 4 months time after issuance of the LHC Safety Assessment Group's (LSAG) Safety Review originally promised by January 1, 2008, to review the LHC's most recent safety documentation, after it has been issued, and a permanent injunction until the LHC can be demonstrated to be reasonably safe within industry standards.

End Day is hosted on Google Video, and is presented in its entirety below.

The Atomic Cafe

The Atomic Café is an acclaimed documentary film about the beginnings of the era of nuclear warfare, created from a broad range of archival of film from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s - including newsreel clips, television news footage, U.S. government-produced films (including military training films), advertisements, television and radio programs. News footage reflected the prevailing understandings of the media and public.

The film was produced over a five-year period through the collaborative efforts of three directors: Jayne Loader, and brothers Kevin and Pierce Rafferty. The filmmakers opted to not use narration and instead they deploy carefully constructed sequences of film clips to make their points. The soundtrack utilizes atomic-themed songs from the Cold War-era to underscore the themes of the film.

Though the topic of atomic holocaust is a grave matter, the film approaches it with black humor. Much of the humor derives from the modern audience's reaction to the old training films, such as the Duck and Cover film shown in schools.

The film is hosted at Google Video and is 80 minutes long. The entire film is embedded in this blog and can be watched by hitting the "Play" button in the video window below.