From Big Bangs to Little Bangs

A PPARC Council meeting yesterday took me to London just as the multiple terrorist explosions were unfolding. I arrived by train at King’s Cross station shortly after the explosion in an Underground train in a tunnel nearby. We were told the station and all the Underground system were closed down, so passengers flowed out on the street wondering how to get to work or, in my case, how to get to my meeting over by the Houses of Parliament. No free taxis, of course, and the buses were crammed tight. Anyway, my instinct was to keep away from places with many people, so I started walking.

After a couple of hundred metres, I heard the boom of a new explosion. It turned out later that this one was on a bus a couple of blocks away. I wonder how many people had got on that bus because the Underground was no longer operating?

Central London was full of pedestrians, few buses as they were also being withdrawn from service, and not much other traffic apart from bicycles and the full taxis. Shortly after we had started the PPARC meeting at the Royal Academy of Engineering, the building custodians came in and told us to open the windows, so as to provide a path for the blast wave from any explosion without breaking the windows (the nearby Houses of Parliament being a potential target), and to pull down the blinds.

With gallows humour, the meeting continued. Ironically, at our places around the table were provided images of the Deep Impact probe’s recent collision with the comet Tempel 1. I found myself wondering whether this was legitimate scientific research or cosmic vandalism. (See the cartoon: I apologize for not acknowledging the copyright properly!) I guess the principle is not so different from particle physics colliders: you bang particles together and use detectors to examine what comes out. But we should perhaps treat comets with more respect: one of them may have Earth’s number on it. At least particles cannot destroy the planet.

Following the meeting, my concern was whether I would be able to get back to Cambridge, where I was staying and my son was spending the day looking around Colleges. After taking a hotel room in London, where I was able to watch the news on TV and freshen up with a shower, the BBC announced that local trains out of King’s Cross station had restarted, so I walked over there in the pouring rain and eventually made my way back to Cambridge for late-night dinner with my son in a Turkish restaurant.

Comments

[Alejandro]

Sure that the building custodian wasn't a retired engineer too?

[Gordon T Watts]

Wow John, you sound so cool, but is must have been pretty nerve wracking!

[Qiu-Hong Hu]

When I first saw the title, I thought you were talking about the creation of the universe on the one hand, and that of the electron positron pairs on the other. I enjoy reading your work anyway. The bangs described in your diaries indeed sound pretty much analogous to what is going on inside the accelerators or colliders. The difference from physics point of view seems in the former case people believe that the bangs have destroyed some entities, whereas in the latter case people believe that the bangs have created some new entities while destroying the others. History is just one man’s tragedy the other man’s joke, all depending on where you are in space-time. God bless all.

[Juan A. Saenz]

Hi John,

I could have sworn I saw you in the land of coffee, in the beautiful Sabana, catching a cab at the 127th st N with 7th st E. If so, I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Juan

[panke]

"I found myself wondering whether this was legitimate scientific research or cosmic vandalism"

I quite agree with you.
Numerous so called astronic explorations are
nothing but monney-burning ,boring games.

[m.visaya]

C6-KEWRY

[m.visaya]

C6 ruled by homological algebra of dihedral group D[5] - the modern problem, it appears, is like the common flu. (isBN-285)

[m.visaya]

nu=42 268 742 745

[m.visaya]

some lines, like the event horizon, dmz, line of control, no-fly zone - battle lines - you wish are never crossed simply because these are paths of steepest descent that would alienate anyone's world... (NMA-237)

[Rick Kobilansky]

Are you the same John Ellis responsible the creation of the Clear water machine process? If so please contact me at rkobilan@msn.com

[m.visaya]

RHole: R5={bacon,ahmes,ferrari,euler,davinci};

[m.visaya]

O:])((

[m.visaya]

a safety lining of calcium carbonate embedded inside the skin of the craft should release detectable heat by infrared inflight or along with other pre-flight or maintenance checks such as x-ray diffraction for cracks and moisture. in effect, allowing a hole to be fixed by a fixer itself. at least, until the shuttle itself is beyond repair. as for people in it, i would check the history of early flight and spaceflight... (BDN-722)

[m.visaya]

kukulkan wanted portions of the code that aren't local to them but rightfully belong to us for the purpose of profiting from eugenically, bionically and agriculturally sound genetic sequences. it is an emerging crime symbolized by our flight in a fate similar to falling in a black hole.

[mazdakam]

سلام عمرا فارسی نتونی بخونی