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In Danieru's recent post, we learnt that 8 billion dollars were spent on some kind of "Large Hard-on Collider" machine.
We also learnt, thanks to me, that for a wedge that big you could have bought 1.6 million Reebok Pump 2.0 trainers. Let me put that in perspective: that's enough to give one Reebok Pump 2.0 trainer to every four Ethiopians who receive international aid in a given year. That's a one-in-four chance of a comfortable foot, or, if you like, a one-in-sixteen chance of two comfortable feet. And that's in addition to the food.
Imagine saying to a hungry young girl with a new trainer, "Excuse me, young lady, but how about you and everyone you know give up your freshly airdropped Reebok Pump 2.0s and, in return, you can all - all 1.6 million of you - share one Hardon Collider? How does that sound to you? Did I mention that it's a Large Hardon Collider?"
I think we all know what we would choose.
Anyway, what else could you get for $8,000,000,000? What would you like to get? What use of that money would, in your eyes, constitute a noble expenditure? What might be acheived with your purchase? -
How about a pair, or two, of these:
Adam Brandejs made this animatronic "flesh" shoe that can be controlled by an MP3 player:
Much cooler than any number of Reebok Pump 2.0s...
The shoe is stitched together with multiple pieces of latex rubber cast out of moulds made from my own skin. The shoe’s toe and heel raise and lower as it occasionally vibrates/pulsates, and twitches on the floor as if it were still alive. The movement is not constant, and usually causes people to jump back while they are in the middle of leaning in for a closer look. - Via Neatorama -
They say, at JumpJump, that they can custom-make bouncy castles at "any size you need".
Based on their examples, I estimate that for $8,000,000,000 (including VAT), you could commission the construction of a forty-nine-square-mile bouncy fortress, which would comfortably cover Milton Keynes, provide bouncing space for (according to JumpJump's safety guidelines) six hundred million people, and (weather permitting) be easily visible from the international space station.
Alternatively, you could buy one Large Hadron Collider (pictured, right).
I think we all know what we would choose. -
Now I'm tempted
It wwould be a Large Human Collider. -
You can apparently buy old double-decker buses for around £8000 pounds.$8,000,000,000
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£4,363,374,494
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54,5421.8 buses
Since a bus is about 8.4 metres long, if we stacked our newly aquired buses on top of each other, end to end, we'd have a chain of buses stretching 4581 KM into the sky.
NASA's new bus-based mega sculpture will be exhibited sometime after the Sun stops rising.
Still, not as exiciting as atoms smashing into each other at close to the speed of light, but hey; playing with whimsical units of measurement is fun enough to make me not care... -
You could try to push back the boundaries of human understanding with an LHC. You could try to test the most strained imaginings of the most brilliant minds that Earth has known, and see, right in front of you, happenings that would inspire even more vivid sparks of genius.
Or you could support a noble, British endeavour. You could help to further the progress of a record-breaking expedition toward the frontiers of the modern human's existence. You could inspire in the British, and scare out of the rest, the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that would build a modern empire. Science, schmience: business is the new mode for mankind's pioneers!$8,000,000,000
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£4,363,374,494
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15 weeks of Vodafone
Or, should you wish, you could buy one Large Hadron Collider. I think we all know what we would choose. -
Got it! I would open a bank and lend only to low- middle income people, at an interest rate one percent lower than the prime rate. Anyone heard of the Tobin tax? It's a tax on the international game of buying and selling currency, at about 0.01% it would raise enough money to feed and clothe the world.
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I would buy a decently sized island in a temperate climate region. I would coat the entire surface of my island with the most frictionless material known to man (perhaps I could spend a few million / billion on its research). Next I would have a pair of shoes designed made of exactly the same material (Reebok Super-Frictionless 2.0).
Finally I would slide around all day and night to Michael Jackson's Don't Stop 'til you Get Enough, Wham!'s Club Tropicana and Hall and Oates' She's a Maniac.
This, I think you'll agree, would be a prime waste of money. -
How would you change direction?
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In the not so popular sport of curling participants utilise a specially prepared pair of shoes with slightly divergent designs. The sole of the right shoe is covered in a low friction material; the sole of the left shoe is covered in a high friction material. This allows them to control their power to perfection, pushing themselves into the curl with their left foot and sliding through their momentum on the right. (A more detailed explanation of the properties of curling shoes can be found here)
Perhaps something like this would suffice for 'frictionless' direction changes, either that or ski-like edges could be fitted onto my shoes' perimeter. What fun I would have... -
- CommentAuthorjennyology
- CommentTimeJul 2nd 2006 edited
unfortunately we're still on the cheap side of the Iraq War at 9 billion and climbing...
because I'd like some advertising exclusivity on that franchise!
how about 2,000 Holy Crabs instead?
...I must add that I can't see why one dead crab will cost you more than a Zebra Ranch. Then again, who wants to live in Oklahoma? -
A wife
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Wives are expensive, granted...
Heather Mills must be the most expensive wife in history (post divorce of course).
So, to answer you question again Roland. For one Large Hadron Collider you could buy approximately 16 Heather Millses....16 x 
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Hmmmm... When did they build this Hadron Collider?
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It's been under construction for ar least a decade...I happily found a cable doco on its construction...Megastructures the series is called. It is the biggest machine ever constructed and you never know your luck, benefits could be anything...hot supercondctors, infinite energy drawn from the vacuum itself, antigravity...anything...what happens if we find stable transuranic elements? All science fiction of course....for now.
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More TV crap on the collider, free to air therefore the presenter was a genuine moron, utterance without semantic content, I swear I've heard a baboon make more sense. Anyway...99.99% c! that is rilly fucking fast....I confess, I'm a little worried by what might result...far more than I am by tewwowism. I remember what Oppie said at Alamagordo, when they set off the first bomb, they were a little worried they might set the atmosphere on fire.
Oh well still here... -
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CommentAuthorfelipevenancio
- CommentTimeSep 10th 2006
Man, you can buy my pride, my self-steem and my silence!!! -
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Interesting stuff on the LHC on the Radio Natinal Science Show (ABC Aus.) yesterday. The project is the greatest example of humans cooperating I've ever heard of....one little example, one component is being built by a group from three interesting countries...
Israel, Iran, and the USA!
Let the physicists run the world!
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