I was amused to find this bit of awkwardly worded text in the article:
"...the Higgs boson, a hypothetical particle that scientists theorize gives mass to other particles and thus to other objects and creatures in the universe."
That's okay. I lol'd. I was going to say something like "Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light." - So I voted you up.
I consistently vote down comments that say things like "I know I'm going to be voted down for this, but ..." unless they are exceptionally interesting or insightful. (They never are.)
"Disclaimer for Stupidity?" I think you might have something there! What about a registry for provable journalistic incompetence (so limited to factual errors of misunderstanding of science) disguised as a sympathetic organization of mercy?
So it started @ 3am EST time. First 2 tries failed to get the beam up. They expect to try again after resetting the machine @ 5am EST or about 1.5 hours from now.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 58.1 ms ] threadIt looks like it will be Webcast here: http://webcast.cern.ch/lhcfirstphysics/
"...the Higgs boson, a hypothetical particle that scientists theorize gives mass to other particles and thus to other objects and creatures in the universe."
http://bornandbreded.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/crossed.jpg
Saying "I know I'm going to get voted down" and not being a complete troll: best way to ensure that you don't get voted down?
It's kind of like a disclaimer for stupidity.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
You can also follow them via twitter @CERN http://twitter.com/cern
Also a working link to the camera is http://webcast.cern.ch/lhcfirstphysics/
Exiting!
"Experiments are collecting their first physics data - historic moment here! Watch the webcast, look at the photos - all live!"