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| Large Hadron Collider - First Beam on 10 September 2008 - |
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Black-Tulip
 Posted:
Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:24 pm |
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Large Hadron Collider - First Beam on 10 September 2008
LHC to switch on early tomorrow amid death threats
JR Minkel
Heads up, science fiends and night owls: The greatest science experiment ever built is set to switch on at around 3:30 A.M. Eastern Time tomorrow.
After 14 years and $8 billion, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) plans to inject the first beam of protons fully around the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the circular particle accelerator 17 miles (27 kilometers) long straddling the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva.
It will most assuredly not destroy the world.
What it will do is help researchers answer some big questions about the universe—why particles have mass; what dark matter may be made of, and why matter survived its brush with antimatter when the universe was young.
The LHC will accomplish all that by producing high-energy particle collisions—600 million per second—for detectors to scan for rare but telling debris. (See our special report, The Large Hadron Collider: Countdown.)
CERN estimates that in six to eight weeks it will steer the first proton beam into a head-on crash with a second beam circulating the other direction, for a combined energy of 10 trillion electron volts (TeV) per collision. The lab plans to shut down the accelerator for the winter in mid-November and prepare it to restart next year at its full energy of 14 TeV.
Scientists by now are sick of reiterating that they would not have built such a machine if they had the slightest fear that it would produce microscopic black holes capable of destroying the world. Nor do they appreciate the death threats.
Here's a list of LHC events around the country.
Image credit: CERN
http://tinyurl.com/6kk22f
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Posted:
Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:17 pm |
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Wonder why the European Organization for Nuclear Research is called "CERN" instead of "EONR". 
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Click your heels together...
Joined: 14 Aug 2006
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Wed Sep 10, 2008 2:50 am |
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| resigned wrote: | | Wonder why the European Organization for Nuclear Research is called "CERN" instead of "EONR". |
History
The convention establishing CERN was signed on 29 September 1954 by twelve countries in Western Europe. The acronym CERN originally stood, in French, for Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Council for Nuclear Research), which was a provisional council for setting up the laboratory, established by 11 European governments in 1952. The acronym was retained for the new laboratory after the provisional council was dissolved, even though the name changed to the current Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in 1954.[2] According to Lew Kowarski, a former director of CERN, when the name was changed, the acronym could have become the awkward OERN, and Heisenberg said "But the acronym can still be CERN even if the name is [not]".[citation needed]
Soon after its establishment, the work at the laboratory went beyond the study of the atomic nucleus, into higher-energy physics, an activity which is mainly concerned with the study of interactions between particles. Therefore the laboratory operated by CERN is commonly referred to as the European laboratory for particle physics (Laboratoire européen pour la physique des particules) which better describes the current research being performed at CERN.
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Wed Sep 10, 2008 7:25 am |
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European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists applaud
during the switch on operation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC),
the world's largest particle collider, at the CERN's control center, in
Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008. The world's largest
particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a
beam of protons all the way around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel
Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding
the makeup of the universe. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, Pool)
Largest particle collider conducts successful test
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS – 42 minutes ago
GENEVA (AP) — The world's largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons around a 17-mile underground ring Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.
After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10:36 a.m. indicating that the protons had traveled the full length of the $3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider.
"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap.
Champagne corks popped in labs as far away as Chicago, where contributing scientists watched the proceedings by satellite. Physicists around the world now have much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to see how they are made.
"Well done everybody," said Robert Aymar, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to cheers from the assembled scientists in the collider's control room at the Swiss-French border.
The organization, known by its French acronym CERN, began firing the protons — a type of subatomic particle — around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier.
Now that the beam has been successfully tested in clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the big bang, which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe.
The start of the collider — described as the biggest physics experiment in history — comes over the objections of some skeptics who fear the collision of protons could eventually imperil the earth.
The skeptics theorized that a byproduct of the collisions could be micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.
"It's nonsense," said James Gillies, chief spokesman for CERN, before Wednesday's start.
CERN is backed by leading scientists like Britain's Stephen Hawking in dismissing the fears and declaring the experiments to be absolutely safe.
Gillies told the AP that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel.
Nothing of the sort occurred Wednesday, though accelerator is still probably a year away from full power.
"On Wednesday we start small," said Gillies. "A really good result would be to have the other beam going around, too, because once you've got a beam around once in both directions you know that there is no show-stopper."
The project organized by the 20 European member nations of CERN has attracted researchers from 80 nations. Some 1,200 are from the United States, an observer country which contributed US$531 million. Japan, another observer, also is a major contributor.
The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel.
Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the makeup of the atom. Less than 100 years ago scientists thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom's nucleus, but in stages since then experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons and that there were other forces and particles.
The CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle — the Higgs boson — believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.
Some scientists have been waiting for 20 years to use the LHC.
On the Net:
CERN: http://www.cern.ch
The U.S. at the LHC: http://www.uslhc.us/
Large Hadron Rap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?vf6aU-wFSqt0
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| Phantom
Posted:
Wed Sep 10, 2008 11:23 am |
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Re: Large Hadron Collider - First Beam on 10 September 2008
But it hasn't reached full power yet and won't until next year.
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:11 pm |
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Re: Large Hadron Collider - First Beam on 10 September 2008
| Phantom wrote: |
But it hasn't reached full power yet and won't until next year. |
No need for panick though.
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29199
The case for mini black holes
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Postscript
It should be stated, in conclusion, that these black holes are not dangerous and do not threaten to swallow up our already much-abused planet. The theoretical arguments and the obvious harmlessness of any black holes that, according to these models, would have to be formed from the interaction of cosmic rays with celestial bodies, mean that we can regard them with perfect equanimity.
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| Phantom
Posted:
Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:26 pm |
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Re: Large Hadron Collider - First Beam on 10 September 2008
| Black-Tulip wrote: |
No need for panick though.
http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/29199
The case for mini black holes
.
.
.
Postscript
It should be stated, in conclusion, that these black holes are not dangerous and do not threaten to swallow up our already much-abused planet. The theoretical arguments and the obvious harmlessness of any black holes that, according to these models, would have to be formed from the interaction of cosmic rays with celestial bodies, mean that we can regard them with perfect equanimity. |
Who's panicking? I'm just pointing out that a statement for or against it's safety can not be made until it's run at full poswer.
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Joined: 05 Jun 2006
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Location: My only friend, the end
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:56 pm |
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Re: Large Hadron Collider - First Beam on 10 September 2008
| Phantom wrote: |
Who's panicking? I'm just pointing out that a statement for or against it's safety can not be made until it's run at full power. |
Nah, they knew it was safe before they started.
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| Phantom
Posted:
Wed Sep 10, 2008 1:00 pm |
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Re: Large Hadron Collider - First Beam on 10 September 2008
| Black-Tulip wrote: |
Nah, they knew it was safe before they started. |
And they said that the Titanic was unsinkable too.
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| Black-Tulip
Posted:
Thu Sep 11, 2008 12:27 pm |
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LHC a sure sign that Europe is the center of physics
Posted by Richard Koman @ September 11, 2008 @ 8:31 AM
The successful start-up of the Large Hadron Collider represents not just a huge victory for particle physics but also a victory for Europe. Once upon a time there was a brain drain from Europe to the U.S. – not only Albert Einstein in the 30s but also Wehrner von Braun in the 40s (”Once the rockets are up who cares where they come down? That’s not my department, says Wehrner von Braun”) and all the way through the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
But today? There’s no doubt that Europe – especially CERN — is the center of the science world. The Europeans took the lead in building the LHC, kicking in $6 billion. The US contribution? Just over $500 million, Alan Boyle reports at MSNBC.
Besides the LHC, there’s the ITER fusion research center in southern France and potentially another fusion project, the HiPER laser-fusion facility.
Meanwhile, in Washington, politicians yanked support for ITER and ripped $94 million out of physics research. Some of the funding has been restored but many positions were lost.
Michio Kaku points to the cancellation of the planned Superconducting Super Collider in 1994.
“Let’s be blunt about this: There could be a brain drain of some of our finest minds to Europe, beause that’s where the action is,” Kaku said. “We had our chance, but Congress canceled our supercollider back in 1994. We’re out of the picture. We can basically tag along after the Europeans, begging them for time on their machine — but really, the action is in Europe now.”
What will the US role be for the next major project, the International Linear Collider? The US is supposedly interested but it will have to compete with newly rich nations like China and India that boast serious scientific minds of their own. Beijing just hosted an exploratory meeting on hosting the ILC.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3993
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24748826/
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| Knipoog
Posted:
Fri Sep 12, 2008 1:17 am |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM
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