Fine Structure

The most recent round of LHC fear-mongering went out recently with the news of two people suing to delay the start date for the new collider in Geneva for safety reasons. Doesn't sound  like big headline news? It's not. Until they mention that we're at risk of DESTROYING THE EARTH if we don't heed their warnings. I wanted to do a short post about the issue because it's important that their misrepresentation of the risks involved be clearly stated. In short, two people (not sure if they even warrant the title 'scientists' at this point) claim that the Large Hadron Collider could produce micro-black holes or stragelets at it's never-before-seen higher collision energies. The issue is covered by the New York Times and shares views from both sides, albeit feeling a little weighted towards rationality.

The most notable post is Jennifer Ouellette's roundup of actual facts relating to the case (on her very nice TypePad blog). Safety studies? Already done that. Three times. Likelyhood of Earth's destruction? As far as we can tell, very very very small. And I think that really gets to the heart of what is being challenged here. A lot of very smart people have evaluated the situation and believe that there's not anywhere near a small chance of a disaster on the level that these two are talking about. Colliders are, in fact, very powerful and dangerous machinery but the danger is limited to the people and technology in proximity to the ring, as seen in the repair reports for the LHC. An infinitesimally small chance of something unexpected happening is not worth ceasing the advancement of science. It's the purpose of science to explore the unknown, especially in bleeding-edge science such as high energy physics. Unbiased evaluation of the risks are expected and, as scientists, all we can do is act on that information. Otherwise we would be going nowhere.

It's unfortunate that this issue gets as much press as it does since the two challengers here are either woefully uninformed or are just looking for a little media attention (and the NYTimes article seems to suggest the latter). To a degree, any kind of media coverage is good media coverage since it's unlikely that the public will lash out and slow the LHC buildout but one has to wonder how it will effect future policy decisions. I wouldn't be surprised if the next Congress discussing for HEP funding contains a word or two about destroying the world with micro-black holes. Fortunately, Congress' science informedness is another issue altogether.

I'm stepping out on a limb here in terms of subject matter. It's not physics related, only tangentially science related, completely gaming related and somewhat personal. But it matters to me and raises some interesting social questions about just how much entertainment we should entertain.

I want to make something. Specifically, I have the urge to develop a virtual world. Something visually non-complex that exists both for users that log in to interact and for the entities that are permanently contained inside. I describe it as an urge because that's exactly what it is; A nigh uncontrollable drive to create something that exists and interacts in itself.

I've been thinking about it for a while, actually. I can say with confidence that it's derived from years ago when I was playing one of the early online multiplayer games. It was an actual drive to play that particular game for a while and after I had given in and then quit two or three times I finally realized that I didn't really approve of myself playing these types of games at all. They rewarded endless time-wasting on tasks that were simply not fun with virtual riches and notoriety. In that way I decided that the benefits did not outweigh the time spent and I would never play another game that was in the same form.

It's not as though the urge to play this game just went away at this point and when it would return I started breaking it down and trying to figure out what was so compelling about this game and what I felt I needed from it. To this day when I drive past endless rolling hills I think about this game and running from one place to another to pick up one thing or drop off another, it really is that deeply stamped in my memory. But that particular feeling was one of freedom, exploration and open-ended adventure and for some reason this game, this virtual game provided these things in bulk.

It wasn't until a couple years later that I decided to put that feeling to other use. If I couldn't participate in false reality exploration, I could at least create a convincing false reality for others to explore in. I wanted others to feel the same drive to explore because there was something out there for them to discover. This is where things got complicated for me. I'm not completely sure I want to burden other people with this feeling of exploration that I've tried so hard to get away from. I'd say it's a false hope to believe that you might one day stumble upon something that effects everyone in your reality (or perhaps that's simply why I'm interested in physics) but it's completely viable in an alternate reality (i.e. game) where you're one of only a couple hundred thousand people and new places and items are added monthly.

I mentioned earlier that I ditched the game because I felt that the time spent outweighed the benefits gained. This is the real problem I had with the game. It didn't bother me that I was interacting with people in an alternate world, that was completely acceptable, but that I wasn't gaining anything from it and to compete in the only way the game let you compete you had to put a great deal of time into it.

The culmination of all this is that I want to make something (whereas something is defined as an interactive experience that closely resembles a online multiplayer game) and that something traverses the space where you can explore and discover new things in the game but also doesn't require you to worry about falling behind or being left out if you don't want to play today. I'm not sure what to call it yet. It's new and different.