CERN rap video about the Large Hadron Collider creates a black hole of awesomeness
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Aug 8th 2008 3:29PM
posted Aug 8th 2008 3:29PM
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Looking forward to Weird Al's parody, which would actually be a serious rap...
Anyone who doesn't already know about him should check out MC Hawking. He busts more shit than an incontinent man at a chilli cook-off. His song 'entropy' is equally educational but far more dope than the slightly embarassing display above. It's on youtube, but you really should buy the album.
@ j_g_puff:
I have heard MC Hawking. At first I thought it was just a joke and then I kept hearing it on Sirius 34... Weird shit but it's funny.
You'd think for scientists it'd be easy to level the damn audio. That thing was unbearable. MC Hawking is pretty cool tho.
Another video ruined by Youtube's new audio levelling system!
It sucks so bad! When will you fix this Youtube? You're killing our audio!
right at like 3:18, is that guy masturbating?
a brief history of rhyme?
Snoop aint got nothin on these pimps.
At least they are better than the Cernettes (who also feature on the first image on the web);
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Horribles_Cernettes
Very educational, but musically, they can't hold a candle to the Cernettes.
actually it sounds like Grandmaster Flash.
actually it sounds like Grandmaster Flash.
actually it sounds like Grandmaster Flash.
does it, now?
THAT WAS GOOD! WEEEEE I WANT ANTI MATTER!
Wow. And I thought I was dorky. Just wow!
That's all I could think, lol.
That video was so full of Win, as they say.
It hurts us. It hurts us so much.
You failed at life.
Lame and idiotic.
Personally, I wouldn't be going around telling others about my problem, but hey, if that's how you roll.
I laughed. I cried. I was entertained. I was squeamish. I learnt something.
Thanks CERN-based Geeks!
I second this opinion.
totally agree
Best headline ever.
Don't click it! I got chills and had to close it.
you just wanna get lowranked, don't you?
Either you're full of irony right now or some cock-ass hipster...either way you've just failed.
thank you CERN rappers, now i have a perfect understanding of the higgs boson!
Hah, yeah me too. :)
I was actually quite puzzled about the whole LHC project and it's purpouse, and however this 'dorky' this song might be, it's still explained a lot of things in laymans terms and I have a lot better understanding of things now ... :)
If it was about half as long it would have been the best rap ever.
That's when YOU come out with a version speeding this up 2x.
That was dope, yo.
My biggest concern is that I have a canoe trip planned for September 11th. I've never canoed in anti-water before. Can it be done? Do I need an anti-matter canoe?
You could get an antimatter canoe, but I hope you never touch it =/
Just make sure your real canoe doesn't collide with the anti-canoe.
yes you do, and I have got one to sell you!!!
Lol, their gangster hand symbol is the right hand rule for EMF!
http://www.diracdelta.co.uk/science/source/f/l/flemings%20right%20hand%20rule/source.html
Am I sad that I noticed that too? I've been thinking that about rappers since we learnt about that in physics.
I never knew scientists could be such dorks.
Really? You didn't know SCIENTISTS could be DORKS?
dude....seriously?!
Scientists are the real Original Gangsters. Always gettin thrown in jail and shit for their theories back in the good ol' days.
Yeah that Bruce Edwards Ivins was one bad ass anthrax slinging mofo.
WOW.
Oh SNAP
And these are the people that are about to operate something that has a slim possibility to destroy the planet? I'm not exactly encouraged...
You're kidding right?
There is absolutely ZERO possibiliby of the LHC destroying the planet. It's not a large possibility. It's not 50/50. It's not even a slim possibility. The possibility is ZERO. I'm sorry but I'm sick of hearing things like this. It's mostly the fault of the idiotic non-scientific media spreading crap that isn't true. Don't fear it simply because you don't understand it.
ZERO POSSIBILITY! I can't say that enough.
Well, saying that anything has a "ZERO possibility" of anything happening is incorrect. We have no proof that massive particles don't create some unknown force that could rip apart the universe. Or, via quantum mechanics, anti mater could suddenly pop up, creating a large amount of destruction. OR... etc.
What you mean is that the chances of these things happening is so close to zero, that it can be considered as zero, but it is still genuinely non-zero.
Thank you.
Actually. Mike is in a way right. There is a chance but its incredibly small.
Although personally, Id rather we were all destroyed by our own curiosity and pursuit of knowledge than complete ignorance of global warming.
on topic.
im sorry but i just cringe at this. Im already quite familiar with LHC and what it does. But this rap simplifies all of the concepts too much for anyway to go away with even a basic understanding. The rap would have to be several days long to even start to explain this properly. Its not in anyway educational but im sure that wasen't the intention.
And Scott Aaronson's equally likely take on the LHC, for those who haven't read it:
Better safe than sorry
After reading these blog posts dealing with the possibility of the Large Hadron Collider creating a black hole of strangelet that would destroy the earth — as well as this report from the LHC Safety Assessment Group, and these websites advocating legal action against the LHC — I realized that I can remain silent about this important issue no longer.
As a concerned citizen of Planet Earth, I demand that the LHC begin operations as soon as possible, at as high energies as possible, and continue operating until such time as it is proven completely safe to turn it off.
Given our present state of knowledge, we simply cannot exclude the possibility that aliens will visit the Earth next year, and, on finding that we have not yet produced a Higgs boson, find us laughably primitive and enslave us. Or that a wormhole mouth or a chunk of antimatter will be discovered on a collision course with Earth, which can only be neutralized or deflected using new knowledge gleaned from the LHC. Yes, admittedly, the probabilities of these events might be vanishingly small, but the fact remains that they have not been conclusively ruled out. And that being the case, the Precautionary Principle dictates taking the only safe course of action: namely, turning the LHC on as soon as possible.
After all, the fate of the planet might conceivably depend on it.
http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=334
The chances are very slim though I doubt you can call it zero... you know that if you lean against a wall, you could use quantum mechanics to prove that there is a chance that you'd pass through it. Why haven't we see this happen to anyone (other than on DL Hawkins in Heroes)? Its because the probability is so small that you'd have to lean against that wall for a period way longer than your natural life..
So essentially what we're trying to say is.. stop worrying. Nothing is going to happen. And if it does, as Skyride said, it'd rather be through curiosity and pursuit of knowledge than pure stupidity and ignorance of the harm we're causing our planet.
that. was. awesome.
it's cool that they got "stephen hawkins" to drop some vocals in the background.
Didn't he contribute on a Radiohead album as well?
The dancing is freakin awesome. Obviously students of Elaine Bennis...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xi4O1yi6b0
I just learned more about science in the last five minutes than I have in the previous five years.
So, the Universe comes to an end on September 10th when these guys discover where all the antimatter went?
Okay...mark your calendars!
If I heard this while driving my car, I'd steer it into a lightpole.
This video, not the creation of a black hole, will go down as humanities Great Mistake of '08.
lawl.
Wow... awesome Orbital reference by the way! Or is that a star trek reference? Oh well, either way... nice.
"Where time becomes a loop... Where time becomes a loop... Where time time becomes a loop loop"
:D
http://www.songtwo.demon.co.uk/orbital/obs.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(band)
Maybe we're already IN a time loop... did you think of that?
WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE? D:
That was great.
HOT DAMN that just made my day.
What happened to their faces? scary
That video just brighten my Friday. Thanks for the hookup engadget!
They have girls there?!
The best part was in the credits-
"Back up dancers: prefer to remain anonymous"
Was I the only one that read this as "Large Hardon"?
Man, I need to get the Hell out of work.
http://www.largehardoncollider.com
Ugh. Uhm. We.. Bu...
You guys aren't concerned that these guys are supposed to be the most intelligent scientists around right?
Scientists are people too.
God forbid they be intelligent and have a sense of humor, too.
Geez.
Don't use it in a electric storm or you could be transported in "another world".
Hadron? was that a typo? :)
That made me really, really miss Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Ok, am I the only one who sees this thing, sees the scedule for its firing up to max potential, then remembers December 23, 2012 (The day the world ends according to the Mayan Calendar)?
Ok, am I the only one who sees this thing, sees the scedule for its firing up to max potential, then remembers December 23, 2012 (The day the world ends according to the Mayan Calendar)?
wth, I hit "add your comments" once and it goes in twice - with a comment between the dups. Site must be running on a mac ;)
lol, there are 3 dups now.
Doesn't that make it a triplicate?
If the site was running on a Mac it would be using the *same* software as other Unix and Linux operating systems: Apache.
i.e. screw you.
Ok, am I the only one who sees this thing, sees the scedule for its firing up to max potential, then remembers December 23, 2012 (The day the world ends according to the Mayan Calendar)?
OMG! Time has become a loop! Did they turn it on already??!!
Thats DOPE!
It was fun trying to turn my volume up and down to counteract whatever the video was doing.
Sweet. Weekend project. Clean up the audio and this is so going in my resource bag.
Is this why the first day of testing was delayed?
I almost cried...wow...
Superstring Theory FTW!!
I've heard worse raps (flow and style wise). And it was definitely informative. I would say this is a success on CERN's part.
Dear God. This video has redefined the very meaning of EPIC.
think you mean Lorentzian manifold (aka. a closed time-like curve). Mobius strip = twisted piece of paper, not spacetime. Easy to mix up :)
Time exists? I thought it was merely the creation of the human mind used to record events chronologically so as to ensure efficient memory storage and recollection.
A popular theory in philosophy, but generally in physics time is generally thought to exist. I believe it's crucial to Relativity and some theories relating to Quantum Entanglement that time is a geometric unit - though it's been quite a few years since I've been in a physics class.
"Exists" is impossible to prove - you can't prove that you exist. We only know what's practical to our brains through our five senses, and Time is a damn practical concept. Good for everything we rightly or wrongly call "reality".
Notice you use "time words" like "chronologically" and "memory" to dismiss the concept - that should tip you off that you're making a bad mistake.
one word. normalization
OK, some observations here:
1.) They did a FIVE MINUTE rap about Large Hadron Collider, so mass props for that! (Pun intended).
2.) There's a difference between nerd and geek subcultures. These people are nerds and cannot dance. But that's OK, 'cause although I can dance, I'm a geek, which makes me a close cousin (who else would watch a five minute rap about an LHC?), so it all cool, lol.
3.) Whoever recorded, mixed, mastered this thing - whatever - needs to hand those tasks to someone who really knows what they're doing. Volume goin' up and down in this vid is drivin' me crazy!
4.) Where were these people when I was in high school? The rap and vid are nerdy, it's true, but hey, it beats a long boring lecture anyday, and kids would learn and remember things better this way! (That was an inadvertent rhyme I just made, OK?).
Peace out, sucka!