Big bang

Current work: nonfic; MH duo book 2
Listening to: Green Day, American Idiot
Reading: (I will pick up another book soon… need to finish mine first)

Today’s the day for the big switch-on: the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), which has a circumference of 17 miles and lies 100 metres beneath the Franco-Swiss border. The results could mean a complete rewrite of physics, as we know it – and I hope for more advances along the lines of PET scans. Yes, there is the ‘we’re doomed: they’re creating a black hole’ theory… but I think that’s sensationalism rather than realism. If you want to see the arguments, take a look at the CERN safety page here.

Some of the figures are stunning – the protons will be travelling at 99.99 per cent of the speed of light, and when two collide they’ll generate heat 100,000 times greater than the sun (in a super-cooled system). There will be 600 million collisions per second and the data will fill 100,000 dual-layer DVDs each year.

All fascinating stuff. (Sorry. Better get out of Kate Nerdy mode or it’ll show up in the book and drive my poor editor crackers.)

Guitar yesterday – I forgot my footstool AND my music. Jim had the bright idea that I could write a song about this summer, and my response that I didn’t think a song that starts ‘crap, crap, crap, crap’ (that’s four staccato crotchets, if you’re wondering) was quite the best way forward set him off on an idea… so we did The Teddy Bear’s Picnic (which was great fun, and I learned about jazz quavers). Homework is to work out the rhythm pattern of ‘Wonderwall’ without cheating and taking it from one of my piano books. (It’s syncopated and the whole thing starts with a quaver rest, which means I have to think about it. This is something I find difficult.) He also mentioned a book I’d like to get hold of – Oliver Sacks on the relationship between music and the mind.

The PHS 2nd birthday book draw is still open, by the way – commenters on yesterday’s post will be in the draw, which my daughter will do at 7pm UK time, and I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.