Pizza and LHC!

“There is not the slightest indication that energy will ever be obtainable from the atom” - Albert Einstein.

The Large Hadron Collider might have disappointed many nay-sayers around the world. It did not spurn the Doomsday by spinning off 'micro black-holes' that engulf the world but looks like it certainly can cook up a pizza pretty fast.

The 'forward thinking' editors at Sciam made an estimate on how long it will take a LHC to de-frost a pizza. As per the calculations, it would take about 3 * 10 ^(-8) seconds to defrost a pizza. This is about the same time taken by light to travel 1 meter.

Pretty fast, huh?

Image credits : Wikipedia.

Americans and privacy

"When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else." - David Brin (American science-fiction writer)

It is amazing and indeed a paradox of our times that America is one of those nations with an absolute madness for celebrities (with scant regard for their privacy) and an equally tight-fisted resoluteness about government turning a Big Brother and hence violating their personal lives!

Here is an article about the History of Privacy in America and its timeline. An interesting read!