2015 looks like being a fascinating year for exploration. First of all we have a glimpse into the outer solar system with the arrival at dwarf planet Pluto by NASA's New Horizons probe. It's our first look at the outermost known world in our neighbourhood and the first pictures will be back in July.
Looking in completely the other direction the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is being switched back on after a refit. Except this time it will be operating at twice the power it was when it made the biggest discovery in particle physics in decades with it's discovery of the Higg's boson. An achievement that pleased and annoyed everyone at the same time. It pleased them because it confirmed we'd been on the right track with theories about the nature of the subatomic world. And it annoyed them because its weight fell right in the middle of all predictions thus refusing to confirm either that we live in a string theory universe, or in a multiverse. Nature is like that, it doesn't matter how good the theories are, if the evidence doesn't fit the theory it has to be dumped. This is why we have to build giant machines to do this stuff, you really can't work it out intellectually - or by spiritual insight. The only way is conjecture and experiment, which is a shame because the fact we didn't know if the Higg's existed gave the mystics a perfect chance to demonstrate their supposed powers by telling us how it fits in with the rest of the primordial Lego set. But they didn't rise to the challenge. In fact, John Hagelin wasn't happy with the experimental outcome so it probably scotched a pet string theory of his. But what else can the LHC discover now? Actually nobody knows. It was designed to find the Higgs - to test a theory - but now that's done it's a case of cranking it up and see what comes out, it could give us a glimpse of dark matter or maybe something completely unexpected (that's probably a given seeing how this stuff usually goes). But what it won't do is answer any really fundamental questions as it still won't be powerful enough but it might give us a way of asking new questions or old ones in a different way so that finally, one day, the wibbly-wobbly energy that makes up all things might be more properly understood. Some journalist asked a question at a press conference, they wanted to know what we stood to gain from it. The physicists on duty that day had no answer, it isn't for them to say what mankind might be able to do with this knowledge. Maybe someone will make a new type of bomb out of it or maybe even a decent warp drive space ship. As far as they were concerned it was knowledge for its own sake, the quest for the ultimate answer. But at the end of the year we are guaranteed to know a couple of things that nobody has ever known before. Quite amazing really. New Horizons Mission to Pluto http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/#.VKhJrCusWmc http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/#.VKhJrCusWmc New Horizons Mission to Pluto http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/#.VKhJrCusWmc New Horizons is on approach for a dramatic flight past the icy dwarf planet and its moons in July 2015. View on www.nasa.gov http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/#.VKhJrCusWmc Preview by Yahoo CERN’s Large Hadron Collider gears up for run 2 | CERN http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/12/cerns-large-hadron-collider-gears-run-2 http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/12/cerns-large-hadron-collider-gears-run-2 CERN’s Large Hadron Collider gears up for run 2 ... http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/12/cerns-large-hadron-collider-gears-run-2 CERN today announced at the 174th session of the CERN Council that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is gearing up for its second three-year run. The L... View on home.web.cern.ch http://home.web.cern.ch/about/updates/2014/12/cerns-large-hadron-collider-gears-run-2 Preview by Yahoo
