"Dear Light-speed, from Science" (No. 15)

Before anyone feels the need to point it out, I'm aware that this one probably contains numerous errors and incorrect applications of the laws of relativity and so forth. If you feel upset by these things, please leave corrections in the comments, or maybe go off and write your own? A bit radical, and a lot harder work than relentless nit-picking I know, but it's always an option.

"Dear Light-speed

Hello. I'm writing this letter, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that it's a pointless effort on my part. Even if you were willing to read it (not guaranteed by any means), how exactly am I going to deliver it to you? I hope I'm not unfairly maligning them, but I sincerely doubt that any of the postal services available have vans or trucks capable of catching up with you (although I have my suspicions about the Royal Mail, given that their delivery times and schedules are so wildly erratic that I can't help but think it's the result of confusion introduced by relativistic time dilation).

Saying that, even if I do somehow manage to get this letter to you, by the time it reaches you it will have achieved close to infinite mass, and that will prove to be some heavy reading!

(Ha ha, see what I did there? A reference to exponentially increasing mass, and I used a joke to 'lighten' the mood! Which is itself a joke with many meanings! 'Lighten' implying that I can use a humorous reference to increasing mass being 'heavy' in order to offset the effects of the increasing mass that I am making jokey references to, and 'lighten' also references 'light' which you are the speed of. Get it?....

COME ON! Even for the anthropomorphic personification of all human knowledge and research and understanding of natural processes, that's bloody clever!)

I suppose I could just write this electronically and transmit it into space via radio waves, so you can read it whenever you like. Admittedly, it might end up confusing any alien race that picks up the transmission, but that might be helpful; they may spend a while trying to determine what it means, rather than deciding that humans are clearly a race of time-wasting idiots and wiping us out as a matter of principle.

And that's where the point of this letter comes in. I know you might be loath to speak to me, seeing as I spend so much of my time trying to work out how to break you, but can you blame me? Seriously mate, is there any chance you could relax the restrictions a bit? I understand the need for universal constants in the formation of a habitable and functioning cosmos, but do you have to be so bloody draconian about it? Speed cameras are bad enough, but a monetary fine and points on a license doesn't really come close to an infinite increase in mass, and near total loss of time seems somewhat harsh even by cosmic standards.

Thing is, I have a lot of things I'd like to get on with, and I can't because you keep putting your infinitely heavy foot down when I try to do something that gets involved with relativity. Fiction and I have been working together and envisioned a lot of potential realities and scenarios where space travel is common (although there are those guys who wear the pointy ears or wrinkled foreheads who seem to be taking it a bit far), but because of you none of it has happened yet. And nobody expects fiction to chip in with solutions, no no no, it's all on muggins here to get us out to the stars. I'm doing my best, but it's bloody hard work. And people insist on being pampered too! They've not even gone to Mars yet, and probably won't unless they're convinced they'll definitely survive the journey. This means I've got to figure out how to cart all their precious mod-cons along with them across the vast reaches of space. Stuff like Oxygen and food, I ask you! Babies, the lot of them.

It's not just space travel, relativistic time effects seriously interfere with my Sat-nav network, it's really hard work adjusting the time difference between a whirring satellite in LEO and a ground based vehicle. I have my hands full just keeping it running perfectly (well, I would if I bothered, but I honestly have better things to do than make sure people who can't be arsed to read a map get to where they're going on time, or at all).

So, I was wondering, any chance on easing the restrictions for a bit? Not everywhere, obviously, I know the Universe would fly apart if your limits were repealed (and fly apart pretty damn fast, probably), but how about just in a few areas. Like satellites and particle accelerators. Purely for curiosity in the latter, I just like to see what happens. That's basically what those things are for in the first place.

Seems a bit harsh though, this universe-wide speed restriction. Obviously, I can't speak for areas 'outside' the universe, such as inside a black hole. But obviously, even if you can go faster than light in a black hole, you need to know how to do that in order to escape in the first place. So you need to know exactly how to get out before you get to go n and figure out how to get out. It's sort of like dating an attractive psycho, really.

But don't you think, fast though it is on the human scale, 300,000 km a second is a bit low for a Universe this size? That means the stars I can see are, on average, thousands of years old. and I'm sick of watching repeats! Part of me even worries that Astrology might have a point after all, it's just that he makes predictions based on info thousands of years old. It would be ironic if there were loads of Neanderthals who regularly 'faced challenges today' (which I imagine they did, quite regularly, given that they are extinct).

And in case you try and shift the blame, I can see that 'light' isn't the one that sets the rules here. Light is willing to slow down to accommodate the medium, I can see that ('I can see the light', geddit? Well? Oh screw you!)

So, what do you say mate? Any chance of looking away for a minute or two while I try to get some things done without your interference? In return, I'll keep tachyons in the realm of 'theoretical' for a little while longer, lest I prove they exist and make you look stupid.

Love and kisses

Science (BA hons)

email: Humourology (at) live.co.uk

twitter: @garwboy

Large Hadron Collider, what else can go wrong?

See, we haven't all fallen into a singularity after all!

I really shouldn't be doing this as I have more pressing writings to attend to, but not since the whole Climate change debacle kicked off has a science story dominated so many headlines (although as people observed, on the day one of the most groundbreaking experiments ever began, which may advance humankind further than ever, the headline of the Sun was basically 'Talentless woman has a new haircut').
But as with climate change, the only way Science seems to get this level of attention is when it implies that it might kill us all. The LHC experiment set a new record in paranoid scaremongering with people worrying that it might eventually destroy the universe. Nice, but lets be honest, are we as a species really that arrogant? We're still at the mercy of lumps of rock and circular air currents (big ones, admittedly) and we think we have the resources to take on gravity. My barber made this point to me yesterday, which was oddly profound, then he said that the purpose of the LHC was to discover alternate universes and travel to them. Not sure if that's precisely what the researchers are after, but as I always say, don't contradict the guy holding a razor to your neck.
But the LHC doesn't threaten us, Stephen Hawking said so. He wouldn't lie (lets be honest, in his current condition he probably wouldn't waste time like that). And even if all the experts are wrong (which has never happened, ever) and a huge black hole does form, it'll be fine. Even if we are sucked in instantly, the closer you get to a singularity, the slower time goes until it eventually stops. So we won't die, we'll live forever. It'll be dull, admittedly, but there are worse ways to go.
But are there still dangers from the LHC? Yes, here's a few I thought of.

• WHO OWNS IT? - Apparently, the LHC is built on the Switzerland/France border. This may explain why it cost £5 billion (a lot of people have complained about the cost, £5 billion could have paid for a whole day of the war in Iraq for goodness sake, what a waste!) Would it have cost so much if they hadn't had to get planning permission from two governments? And if some very interesting results do occur, who owns them? Obviously the team behind it, but what if both France and Switzerland start fighting over it? They could go to war. Admittedly, according to stereotypes, that would be the most pathetic war in history. But then others would get involved. And it all kicks of from there.

• ALIENS! - According to Star Trek - First Contact, Aliens first visit Earth when we achieve warp flight, the energy signature showed we were advanced enough for contact. What if the LHC provides the same thing? Maybe aliens will detect the processes and come say hello. And what if they're not nice ones? Or even nice, but massively annoying, like guests hat come round but refuse to take the hint and leave after 8 hours of dull conversation? Imagine that on an intergalactic scale.

• MASS REDUCTION - One of the things that the LHC could produce is evidence of the Higgs Boson, the theoretical 'God' particle that gives everything it's mass via some highly complex do-hickys and what not (I'm not a physicist, I could try and use the correct terminology, but if I get it wrong that would freak me and fellow brainiacs out). If they find the Higgs, learn to control it, then they could feasibly reduce it's influence or 'deactivate it'. That means instantaneous weight loss. Healthy eating could be a thing of the past, what's the point? The food crisis will only get worse! Worse, I tells ya!

• STEPHEN HAWKING - If this all goes well, expert scientists will be wanted for quotes and opinion, and everyone will want Hawking's input, it's started already (check the link above). He's not well! He can barely move as it is! This extra pressure won't do him any good, it could put him out of action prematurely, and what if he's not had time to explain it to us all? Admittedly, the fact that he's not directly involved with the project implies that there are more scientists who understand this than just Hawking, but are any of them as well established in the media?
  

So there, a comprehensive guide to other calamities that could result from the LHC. Not quite Universal destruction I admit, but unpleasant all the same. And lets not forget the actual experiments which could cause a black hole haven't been done yet, they happen in October...