# That's not a particle accelerator...



## Quokka (Feb 12, 2007)

This is a Particle  Accelorator....

Ok so alot of whats below is actually the ATLAS detector and not the accelorator itself.

But hopefully later this year,they're saying November at this stage ,(and no i don't know who _they_ are) the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern will finally get kicked over.

Without getting too carried away, this is definately one of the more exciting prospects in science in a long time. The technology being developed to handle the massive amounts of data alone is impressive.

At the very least, during its lifespan the LHC is predicted to find or provide supporting evidence for new particles and it may just give clues to a whole lot more.

I like this quote published in the _New Scientist_  (No 2588)



> "People always ask me, 'if you discover a new particle, how will you distinguish supersymmetry from extra dimensions? says Ian Hinchliffe, who leads one of the Atlas teams. "I'll discover it first, I'll think about it on the way to Stockholm, and I'll tell you on the way back."



One last thing, there's something  a decidedly humorous that what may be the most advanced experiment in the history science, revolves around the basic concept of smashing things together as hard as you can and watching to see what falls out .


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## j d worthington (Feb 12, 2007)

*Re: That's not a particle accelorator...*

Yes, Lisa Randall has quite a bit to say about the hopes that the LHC will provide enormous amounts of evidence for various particle theories, as well as causing us to both reevaluate and restructure others... 

Exciting times indeed!


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## Culhwch (Feb 12, 2007)

*Re: That's not a particle accelorator...*

Looks like the innards of the Death Star. Where's Lando and Wedge...?


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## chrispenycate (Feb 20, 2007)

*Re: That's not a particle accelorator...*

See that little guy at the bottom, there? No, it's not me; I was in a group of other oglers. It's a _long_ way underground; in case of nuclear war I'm considering moving in.


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## Dave (May 22, 2008)

*Re: That's not a particle accelorator...*

There was much talk of this being the cause of the end of the world, but I haven't heard anything about it for some time. According to the website:


> It planned to circulate the first beams in May 2008. First collisions at high energy are expected mid-2008 with the first results from the experiments soon after.



Well, it is already mid-May, but no demonstrations, no 'The End is Nigh' placards.


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## TheEndIsNigh (May 23, 2008)

*Re: That's not a particle accelorator...*



Dave said:


> There was much talk of this being the cause of the end of the world, but I haven't heard anything about it for some time. According to the website:
> 
> 
> Well, it is already mid-May, but no demonstrations, no 'The End is Nigh' placards.


 
Oy!!!!!

No ones turning me into cardboard!!!

However, it will all end in tears. 

Anyway, since the end is comming, does it really matter what triggers it.


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## Pyan (Jun 23, 2008)

*Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



> *Our planet is not at risk from the world's most powerful particle physics experiment, a report has concluded. *
> 
> The document addresses fears that the Large Hadron Collider is so energetic, it could have unforeseen consequences.



Well, that's reassuring, isn't it? I just hope it's a better forecast that "Man will never travel into space", and "I cannot see any use for a computer in the home".....

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Earth 'not at risk' from collider


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## Dave (Jun 23, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Or as accurate as these predictions:

“Space travel is bunk.”
— Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal of the UK, (two weeks before Sputnik orbited the Earth)

"X-rays will prove to be a hoax."
- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

"Radio has no future."
- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

"I can state flatly that heavier than air flying machines are impossible."
- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
— Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives.”
— Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.”
— Albert Einstein


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## R. P. Lane (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

The first delay was precipitated by an accident in March 2007 during stress testing of one of the LHC's "quadrupole" magnets. 
A statement carried on the Cern website from the US laboratory that provided the magnet stated that the equipment had experienced a "failure" when supporting structures "broke". It later emerged that the magnet had exploded in the tunnel, close to one of the LHC's most important detectors, prompting the the facility to be evacuated. 

************
This is really scary stuff. If they can have a 'failure' before it's even started how do they know for a fact that there won't be another 'failure' that will start something they can't finish?

Perhaps there is a 'physist' minded person here that can explain something to me. From my understanding (which is not great when it comes to physics) a black hole sucks in everything around it. If this is true then why can't one black hole suck in other black holes to become one gigantic one that will then suck in everything around it, including the machine it is in?

Can anyone answer?


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## ktabic (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Black holes don't just suck stuff in, they also emit energy in the form of Hawking's Radiation. Even the largest of black holes will eventually evaporate away to nothing (it just needs really long periods of time) - the small ones that might be created in the LHC will be gone in moments. 
There is also the chance that any black hole created by the LHC will be unable to suck in anything since the emitted radiation will counteract the gravity pull of the black hole.


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## R. P. Lane (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



ktabic said:


> Black holes don't just suck stuff in, they also emit energy in the form of Hawking's Radiation. Even the largest of black holes will eventually evaporate away to nothing (it just needs really long periods of time) - the small ones that might be created in the LHC will be gone in moments.
> There is also the chance that any black hole created by the LHC will be unable to suck in anything since the emitted radiation will counteract the gravity pull of the black hole.


 
Thank you for your reply ktabic. I won't pretend that I understand it but since you do...............do you feel it's a safe project for them to be playing with underground?


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## Pyan (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



R. P. Lane said:


> Thank you for your reply ktabic. I won't pretend that I understand it but since you do...............do you feel it's a safe project for them to be playing with underground?



Never mind _underground_ - do you feel it's a safe project for them to be playing with _anywhere_ on the planet?


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## TheEndIsNigh (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

It has to happen. 
I've been warning you all. 
Not that I'm one to say I told you so. 
cos I won't be here (but then niether will anyone else).


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## R. P. Lane (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



pyan said:


> Never mind _underground_ - do you feel it's a safe project for them to be playing with _anywhere_ on the planet?


 

But the report, issued the European Organization for Nuclear Research, says there is "no conceivable danger". 

Hello pyan.

It's the word "conceivable" that bothers me. (I know I don't have to explain the word to you). They didn't 'conceive' the first failure so if this is how they really feel about it why are they going ahead and doing it?


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## chrispenycate (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Hey, you lot should worry; you'll find me in the CERN car park just about every weekend (I take a bus, and a friend picks me me up there.
But underground or in space, almost no difference in the danger. The size of black hole we are considering (a _lot_ smaller than an atomic nucleus) means that traversing the Earths core is no more difficult than a smoke cloud.
And if the particles (yes, very heavy particles, but you can't think of anything that small as a physical body) start with greater than escape velocity (which they will do, a lot more) they're not going to stick around; they'll be spreading out through the cosmos in almost no time.
Hawking evaporation depends on a couple of mathematically likely but unproven scientific theories have to be right; perhaps little black holes do hang around, gaining a neutron here or a cosmic ray there, down through the billenia? Perhaps all that dark matter they can't explain away is the result of millions of other species doing their CERN experiments down the ages, producing a fog of eetsi-tiny absorbers across the cosmos…




> They didn't 'conceive' the first failure so if this is how they really feel about it why are they going ahead and doing it?


There is a lot of difference with some American company building sub-specification components (which means traffic roundabouts have now got big blue superconducting magnets – to focus the attention?) and relying on a physical theory which your experiment might prove right – or not. Still, when they exploded the Bikini hydrogen bomb it was considered there was a one in a thousand chance it would start a chain reaction in Earth's oceans, making us into a very small (and very temporary) star. Of course it didn't; there had been lots of events far more energetic than that, in Earth's history.
And I don't believe the Forces Motrices can generate enough energy for a genuinely dangerous black hole.


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## Sephiroth (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

What Chris said.  I wonder where this story came from in the first place?  

By which I mean, whose idea were these world swallowing 'snowball' black holes?  The most powerful cosmic rays that strike our upper atmosphere regularly have energies on the order of one billion times greater than those achievable at CERN, or Fermilab (or anywhere else with a big particle accelerator I haven't heard of...surely Japan has one?)  

Those are thought to have been propelled toward us by _big _black holes.  Ones more worth worrying about, except that they're _quite _far away.  


I've been looking forward to the LHC going online for years, I'd hate to see it stopped because of misplaced public safety fears.


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## Dave (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



Sephiroth said:


> I wonder where this story came from in the first place?


According to that great font of knowledge that is Wikipedia:





> On 21 March 2008 a complaint requesting an injunction against the LHC's startup was filed before the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii by a group of seven concerned individuals. This group includes Walter L. Wagner who notably was unable to obtain an injunction against the much lower energy RHIC for similar concerns.
> 
> The plaintiffs have demanded an injunction against the LHC's activation for 4 months after issuance of the LHC Safety Assessment Group's (LSAG) Safety Review originally promised by January 1, 2008, to review the LHC's most recent safety documentation, and a permanent injunction until the LHC can be demonstrated to be reasonably safe within industry standards. The US Federal Court scheduled the trial to begin June 16, 2009, long after the planned date for the first collisions in the LHC.


So, it does appear like scaremongering. 





Sephiroth said:


> I've been looking forward to the LHC going online for years, I'd hate to see it stopped because of misplaced public safety fears.


The important word there is "misplaced". Since no one can really tell what will happen with any certainty, there is a risk of a catastrophe. It is a non-zero risk, even if the risk is incredibly low. How we deal with very high impact, but very low probability risks, the so-called black swan events, is a great modern moral dilemna. It should not be simply dismissed, but it isn't something that worries me.

What people should really be worried about are the really big risks - for instance, the *one in two* chance that they will be involved in a fatal road accident during their lifetime.


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## PTeppic (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

As you say, it's like comparing 1 in 3-4 of getting cancer (with each one having different chance of dying "before your time") with the chance of asteroid impact before your life expectancy runs out (and potentially killing everything on the planet).

As far as I can tell from the material, if it DOES all go horribly wrong, we won't be in a position to know much about it anyway.


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## Sephiroth (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Interesting stuff.  Thanks, Dave.  Seems that in this case, the complainers have an axe to grind against this type of research more generally.  


I agree, it's a non-zero risk. 

Of course, the chances of me spontaneously tunneling from here to Los Angeles...or Alpha Centauri, or Tatooine...are also non-zero.


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## Erin99 (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

I don't like the idea of scientists attempting to control that which they know very little about, and what is possibly unstable, especially when their equiptment is already going wrong...

And yes, I don't consider myself very scientifically-minded. But shouldn't the people on this planet have a say on what goes on here? I wish someone would lay the facts down for us so we know what could, should, and what hopefully _shouldn't_ happen when they begin experimenting.


Edit: Hi and bye, Seph.


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## Ursa major (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Do we know anything about these guys in Hawaii?


Have they another axe to grind, for example?


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## Dave (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



Ursa major said:


> Do we know anything about these guys in Hawaii?
> 
> 
> Have they another axe to grind, for example?


I found that interesting - why they should feel so strongly - a quick Google search later...

Walter L. Wagner:
SciForums.com - Search Results
SciForums.com - View Profile: Walter L. Wagner


> Biography:
> Physicist, Biologist, Lawyer, Educator
> Location:
> Island of Hawaii
> ...


except that: www.coasttocoastam.com/guests/1515.html


> Walter Wagner graduated UC Berkeley with a *Minor in Physics*, and a Major in Biology. ...


and also:





> PhysOrgForum Science, Physics and Technology Discussion Forums ...5 Sep 2007 ... I continue to assert that "there is NO evidence that Walter L. Wagner has "expert" status in any area of particle, quantum, relativistic or ...


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## Sephiroth (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

But the thing is, the scientists _do _know _a lot_ about what they are doing, Leish.  And you can be sure that if they thought there was even a slim possibility of it destroying the world, it would be in their interests (and everyone else's) to cancel the research.  The fact is that in their risk assessment, they have come to the conclusion that the chances of anything _literally _earth shattering happening is vanishingly small.  

What they can learn from it _might _be earth shattering in terms of what it does for physics, though.  

The whole question is a symptom of the current state of public detachment from, and lack of interest in, cutting-edge science.  It's all quantum physics' fault.  Up until then, the principles of 'science', and physics particularly, could be explained in ways that your average man on the street (or woman - _woman on the street_, I mean, not _man on the woman_) could understand.  By using metaphors taken from the everyday world around them, for example.  

With the rise of quantum physics, things got crazy, and, confronted with something that didn't seem to make sense (and couldn't possibly be the 'final answer', but rather  seemed to thrive on uncertainty), people lost interest.  It takes a concerted effort to get to grips with the current state of our knowledge, or even to catch a layman's glimpse, and some of it is really mind-bending stuff.  

I do wish that people were more interested, and that more people were better informed, and had an opinion on these issues...  But I don't think there's a huge appetite for it out there.  It's not something that affects most people directly.  


And when the media report their snappy, sound-bite snippets declaring that the world is at risk of being 'eaten by a giant black hole', well, it catches people's attention, but it doesn't necessarily bear much relation to the reality of the matter.





[edit]  Wow.  _And _he claims to have detected a magnetic monopole with his baloon-borne cosmic ray detector!


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## Dave (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Apparently, the BBC Horizon programme did a feature of 6 different end of the world scenarios, of which this was one:


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## TheEndIsNigh (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Go back, go back. Repent repent.


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## Pyan (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



Dave said:


> Apparently, the BBC Horizon programme did a feature of 6 different end of the world scenarios....



Now that's scary...Never mind the chances for a moment...that's possible?


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## TheEndIsNigh (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Worry not, it will be  over quicker than that, so we should be able to continue in blissfull ignorance till the end what is nigh.


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## Ursa major (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

And aren't there some "beneficial" time effects?


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## Tillane (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



Sephiroth said:


> the chances of anything _literally _earth shattering happening is vanishingly small.
> 
> What they can learn from it _might _be earth shattering in terms of what it does for physics, though.


Absolutely right, Seph.  I seem to remember reading a while back that, in order for there to be even a vaguely significant likelihood of a supercollider creating a black hole of a magnitude (and with a lifespan) that could endanger the Earth, that collider would have to be so massive that it would have to be in orbit, _encircling_ the Earth.  Even if we wanted to build such a machine, we can't - we can't even come _close_.

However, on reading the reports, I couldn't help thinking of Dan Simmons' _Hyperion_, and the "Big Mistake of '08".


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## TheEndIsNigh (Jun 24, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*

Ursa:

I hope your not referring to the supposed joy of having time slow down so that we can all enjoy the last few seconds stretching out for eternity as we watch various parts of our anatomy stretched to infinity and back in glorious Technicolor. 

Together with the timeless pleasure of feeling every molecule of our frail, soft, unresiliant bodies ripped apart from now till doomsday. 

There's still time repent repent.


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## ktabic (Jun 25, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



Ursa major said:


> Do we know anything about these guys in Hawaii?
> 
> 
> Have they another axe to grind, for example?



Of course not. Proper, professional scientist-type people that they are they can only be concerned with the proper science. They can't upset that they failed to get the courts to stop the RHIC (the current largest particle accelerator, at least for the next couple of months) from starting up, for exactly the same reasons they are trying to stop the LHC from starting up.
Basically one of the pair has a history of suing particle accelerator projects - probably because he doesn't get to play with them.

They can only really be doing it for publicity, since the LHC isn't exactly a small, unknown project that has just come to light, but a big, expensive project that is just nearing the end of construction point and has been ongoing since 1994 and has spent a decent chunk of the £2 billion budget. The right place to stop it was over ten years ago, and I'm sure that if any of the 28 countries involved in funding it thought for a moment that the LHC could destroy the world, they wouldn't have funded it.


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## chrispenycate (Jun 25, 2008)

*Re: Earth 'not at risk' from collider*



TheEndIsNigh said:


> Ursa:
> 
> I hope your not referring to the supposed joy of having time slow down so that we can all enjoy the last few seconds stretching out for eternity as we watch various parts of our anatomy stretched to infinity and back in glorious Technicolor.
> 
> ...



Oh, if the end is only that nigh, I'm in no hurry to repent.
After all, the mass of the holes can't exceed the energy put in to generate them, plus the mass of the particles forced together. Micrograms at the most. 
Taking the most pessimistic view, that Hawking was wrong and small black holes do not evaporate but continue to accrete any available mass/energy, and assuming it started its course directly down through the centre of the planet and had a statistically unlikely number of collisions in its first passage, an engineers' estimate (read "guess") gave two hundred thousand years before the first results are felt; and that was only earthquakes, not the Earth crumbling under our feet. More likely over a million.

Not that this is an excuse for damaging the planet even this far ahead; I might not need it then, but something might. But this is pessimistic figures everywhere; probably massively too pessimistic.

If the machine succeeds in producing pico black holes with a lifespan sufficient to let them get out of the tunnel I'll doubtless have them flying through me; and I don't expect them to do me any more harm than the cosmic rays coming the other way.


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## Celeritas (Jul 26, 2008)

www.LHCountdown.com

when oh when will they turn the accelerator on!? OH When oh will it be?


i'm so excited about this! Show me the Higgs Boson!(long sought after particle that may or may not lead to verification of string theory)

I hear people are worried about the possibility of *uh-oh* the LHC starting up and creating a black hole. I don't think they'll do it if there's even the remotest risk of something dangerous happening.

my two cents...


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## Dave (Jul 26, 2008)

I've merged together the three threads on this. I'm quite looking forward to the end of the world. At least we should get a big party. 

LHC_Homepage
Could someone who knows expalin what ATLAS and ALICE and the other detectors detect?


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## TheEndIsNigh (Jul 27, 2008)

Dave. 

Atlas detector -> This is the one that measures minute trembles in the earth attributed to a nervous twitch the titan is reportedly said to suffer from, first described in the Arcadian chronicles.

Alice detector -> This is a little easier to understand as it's meant to detect the small instantaneous changes in gravitation attraction resulting from the  changes in mass experienced by drinking of the 'Drink me' bottle and the eating of the 'eat me' cake.


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## Celeritas (Jul 27, 2008)

Dave said:


> I've merged together the three threads on this. I'm quite looking forward to the end of the world. At least we should get a big party.
> 
> LHC_Homepage
> Could someone who knows expalin what ATLAS and ALICE and the other detectors detect?



atlas is the experiment designed to observe phenomena that involve highly massive particles which were not observable using earlier lower-energy accelerators and might shed light on new theories of particle physics beyond the Standard Model


alice is optimized to study heavy ion collisions. Pb-Pb nuclei collisions will be studied at a centre of mass energy of 5.5 TeV per nucleon. The resulting temperature and energy density are expected to be large enough to generate a quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter wherein quarks and gluons are deconfined.


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## Sephiroth (Jul 27, 2008)

And...

CMS is the 'compact muon solenoid', which measures muons.  Muons are elementary particles of the same 'family' as electrons (so they are leptons, not hadrons), and are produced in many high energy particle interactions.  The CMS provides a different way of measuring the proton-proton collisions, and will look for many of the same things as the ATLAS detector by producing a different set of data for cross-comparison.  

LHCb ('b' for 'bottom quark') is a targeted experiment designed to measure interactions between 'b-hadrons' (i.e. heavy hadrons -- either baryons or mesons -- which contain a bottom quark).  Of the six types of quark, top and bottom are the heaviest, and are not common in nature, followed by strange and charm.  'Normal matter' made of protons and neutrons contains only up and down quarks, which are the lightest. The purpose of this experiment is to try and investigate CP violation, or particle-antiparticle asymmetry, in the results of the high energy collision of heavy particles.


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## Celeritas (Jul 27, 2008)

Sephiroth said:


> And...
> 
> CMS is the 'compact muon solenoid', which measures muons.  Muons are elementary particles of the same 'family' as electrons (so they are leptons, not hadrons), and are produced in many high energy particle interactions.  The CMS provides a different way of measuring the proton-proton collisions, and will look for many of the same things as the ATLAS detector by producing a different set of data for cross-comparison.
> 
> LHCb ('b' for 'bottom quark') is a targeted experiment designed to measure interactions between 'b-hadrons' (i.e. heavy hadrons -- either baryons or mesons -- which contain a bottom quark).  Of the six types of quark, top and bottom are the heaviest, and are not common in nature, followed by strange and charm.  'Normal matter' made of protons and neutrons contains only up and down quarks, which are the lightest. The purpose of this experiment is to try and investigate CP violation, or particle-antiparticle asymmetry, in the results of the high energy collision of heavy particles.




you beat me to it. =) I had to go change a diaper.


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## Sephiroth (Jul 27, 2008)

That makes us even, then.


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## Celeritas (Jul 27, 2008)

this link:

http://www.bartleby.com/65/el/elementr-p.html


gives a fair description of the standard model if anybody's lost.


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## Dave (Jul 27, 2008)

So, is there nothing particularly new or original in these detectors; the difference with the LHC is its size and power; particles this size have never been made to collide before with such force?


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## Celeritas (Jul 27, 2008)

Dave said:


> So, is there nothing particularly new or original in these detectors; the difference with the LHC is its size and power; particles this size have never been made to collide before with such force?



they are looking mainly for a few things like supersymmetry, the higgs boson and so forth but that's just the first in a long list of things. or at least that i've heard of.


the size of the particles involved depends on the experiment. do you mean mass or actual literal size?


gotta go bounce around the bulk for a bit...

*the light fades to black*


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## Dave (Jul 27, 2008)

Celeritas said:


> the size of the particles involved depends on the experiment. do you mean mass or actual literal size?


yes, I meant mass.


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## Sephiroth (Jul 27, 2008)

It's energy rather than mass.  The protons have a given rest mass which never changes, but as they are accelerated towards the speed of light (which they can never reach), they become more and more energetic.  So particles with _this much energy_ have never been made to collide before.  

The detectors are not revolutionary in themselves, though, no.  

The RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) in Brookhaven National Laboratory, New York, has done experiments similar to those which ALICE will detect before, but at lower energies, with limited success.  The RHIC has other benefits which will mean it is still useful once the LHC supersedes it, however. 

As Celeritas mentioned, the heavy ion experiments collide lead nuclei, rather than bunches of individual protons.  

I believe the Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab, Illinois has been used to conduct b-hadron experiments before too (like the LHCb), but again, at lower energies and thus with less chance of making accurate measurements of these particles, or discovering new physics.


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## Celeritas (Jul 27, 2008)

I was getting to that. you did it again. a girl has to sleep sometime....

Seph, are you involved in scientific work? or are you just an obsessive nerd like I am? =)


Dave if you're interested in this stuff,  you should pick up a few books.


*this space is waiting for Celeritas to return and put a list of books here for dave.*


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## chrispenycate (Jul 27, 2008)

If anyone needs anything from CERN I can pop in there: Most weekend I go out and garden a t a friend's house (practically dead centre of the old LEP ring, so quite a long way eccentric on this new one) and take the bus out to the CERN bus stop, where he picks me up.

Unfortunately the physicist with whom I used to sink an occasional beer, and discuss things, has been a little heavily occupied these last couple of months…


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## Sephiroth (Jul 27, 2008)

Celeritas said:


> I was getting to that. you did it again. a girl has to sleep sometime....
> 
> Seph, are you involved in scientific work? or are you just an obsessive nerd like I am? =)




Sleep?  Well, sure, but a girl named _swiftness _might have posted before she slept...? 

It's the second one, though.  _Obsessive nerd. _ If you put me in a high-energy physics department I'd be very excited, but also rather lost.  It's mathematics that really lets me down.  I wish I had the ability to get my head around the raw maths, but the gnarly stuff is beyond me, I'm afraid.  

But I'm desperate to know the answer to whatever the question is (I'd like to know the question, first).  I've spent some time reading between the lines in physics papers where I can't make head nor tail of half of what is written, hoping that a few of the secrets of the universe might somehow find their way into my head regardless.  I just want to know _everything_, is all.  I need to know _what_..._this_..._is_... *gestures all around*  

I guess it's something similar with you?




Chris, are visitors welcome at CERN, or is it because your friend is a scientist that you can get in?  I've always wondered what would happen if I rocked up in Geneva and asked to see the goodies...?


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## Celeritas (Jul 27, 2008)

Sephiroth said:


> Sleep?  Well, sure, but a girl named _swiftness _might have posted before she slept...?
> 
> It's the second one, though.  _Obsessive nerd. _ If you put me in a high-energy physics department I'd be very excited, but also rather lost.  It's mathematics that really lets me down.  I wish I had the ability to get my head around the raw maths, but the gnarly stuff is beyond me, I'm afraid.
> 
> ...



oh yeah it's the same. my grandfather was a physics professor who filled my head with photons and quarks and neutrino stars starting at a very young age. he gave me a transcript of a series of lectures by micheal farraday called the chemical history of a candle and I was lost in the obsession from that point on. he also was the one who fist dubbed me celeritas.

and it had been three days since i'd really slept(burning the proverbial candle at both ends working on my story) so yes I needed some snoozing.

chris: oh my word I would kill to be where you are! even if only to get maria spiropulu's autograph for the express purpose of turning the faces of my friends on a science forum puke-green with envy(they voted her the sexiest physicist alive) 

i'll have to come up with an abridged (extremely abridged) list of my questions I would ask.

that is too cool!


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## Sephiroth (Jul 27, 2008)

Ah, and suddenly your avatar makes sense, rather than being a random, cool image (I've always liked that picture).  

I was given an astronomy book when I was about eight or nine, which was one the things that did the trick.  

And I'm working on my story too, but perhaps that's not such a big coincidence here. 




I'd just like to walk the 27 km with my mouth open, staring in awe.  Plus, it'd be good exercise.


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## chrispenycate (Jul 27, 2008)

Sephiroth said:


> Chris, are visitors welcome at CERN, or is it because your friend is a scientist that you can get in?  I've always wondered what would happen if I rocked up in Geneva and asked to see the goodies...?



There is a permanent exhibition (Microcosm) held in the big wooden football outside, and there are fairly frequent open days.

But I don't get to go into any of the high tech bits; the cafeteria is hardly space age (mind you, I've been visiting occasionally since their computers had tape drives) and little robot tractors to change tapes).

But if you do come across,  make e deviation to the studio, won't you? It's hardly as high tech as ATLAS, but we make a decent cup of tea.

Come to CERN &ndash; Visits


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## Sephiroth (Jul 27, 2008)

I certainly will, yes, and thanks for the invitation.  I prefer my tea without high-energy protons anyway.  

Perhaps I could even avail myself of the facilities?  I'm no worse than Celine Dion, at any rate... 


And thanks for the link, the tours do look interesting -- especially 'Discovering Antimatter'.  I'd like to meet an antimatter man.  I'd shake his hand.


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## Celeritas (Jul 28, 2008)

obsessive geekdom is awesome.

I burn for more info on CERN. especially some kind of in depth tutorial on the actual inner workings of the LHC. 

that reminds me of something.

my favorite pop physicist built a particle accelerator at his parent's house when he was a teenager. and it worked. he goes into some detail about how he did it in one of his books. what a cool thing. i'm half tempted to try it.

though apparently everytime he would turn it on, it would short out the electricity in the entire house.

this question comes to mind: How did he talk his parents into letting him do it and even helping him by rolling a bazillion yards of wire that stretched across a football field for the requisite magnets!?

lucky S.O.B.


that might be cool. 

*fades away, burning with thought*


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## chrispenycate (Jul 28, 2008)

Well, I built a linear accelerator when I was at university; scavenged the wire for the coils from a gazillion TV deflector coils (No flat screens back then)

Mind you, I built it round a plastic drainpipe, since I didn't have to evacuate the air.

Question; if one shakes the hand of an antimatter man, do not the two of you instantly (or as close to instantly as Einstein will allow, which is pretty close) convert into energy? That'd be a bit inconvenient next to Geneva.


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## Celeritas (Jul 28, 2008)

I think I want to try it.

gosh wouldn't that be fun! your buddies coming over on a weekend to drink some brews and screw around with an accelerator.

I think i've discovered my next big "for the hell of it, to see if I can do it" project.

perhaps even a photojournal thread to document it.

chris if you had any pertinent info to send me i'd be eternally grateful!

must make plans!

(vanishes)

c


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## Celeritas (Jul 28, 2008)

correction:

it was a betatron. a 2.3 million electron volt betatron. still, very cool! 

now where do I get sodium-22?


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## Sephiroth (Jul 28, 2008)

I wouldn't mind giving that a go either.  Definitely fun, although I'd probably electrocute myself.  Did yours work, Chris?

Cele, I'd love to see that thread.  Heh.  



And answer:  I daresay more than Geneva'd be a tad inconvenienced by that.  I weigh eighty kilos.


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## Celeritas (Jul 28, 2008)

so I called a close friend who's working on his physics doctorate and consulted with him for quite a bit.

there's a fair amount of research to be done but we're going to do it because we're both rather insane.=p


i'm looking into the parts we're going to need and as soon as we have all the pieces of the puzzle i'll post that photojournal thread. 

this is going to take some time and a bit of cash so it will be a while. 

i'm totally in giddy child mode.

updates as soon as there's something to update.


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## TheEndIsNigh (Jul 28, 2008)

Celeritas said:


> obsessive geekdom is awesome.
> 
> I burn for more info on CERN. especially some kind of in depth tutorial on the actual inner workings of the LHC.
> 
> ...


 
I seem to remember a "Horizon" program some years ago about the project (when it was first muted) I have this memory of animations of the detectors and the like. It may have been a documentary on the previous collider and ended with the outline of the Cern project

I take it you've read things like the following

http://th-www.if.uj.edu.pl/acta/vol37/pdf/v37p1039.pdf

AS for parents allowing children to do it how far should parents limit their child's enthusiasm for science.

"Dad Mom, would you mind if I built particle accelerator in the yard"

"Well I don't think thats a good idea junior, We may have to knock the garage down and buy uncles Bills house first"

"OK Pop, I'll get the sledgehammer"

"You do that junior I'll get Bill on the phone"

Or :-

Dad Mom, I read this great article on a thing called the Manhattan project and I'd like to give it a try"

Well... Well you know junior thats some experiment you're thinking of doing and it could be dangerous. How about we do the Appolo program instead."

kind of thing


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## chrispenycate (Jul 28, 2008)

A linear accelerator is not a particle accelerator - except in so far as all matter is made up of particles - it is a bits of metallic junk accelerator, that I think is now called a rail gun. Being macroscopic rather than microscopic, if you get mach 2 out of it you're quite happy, so it can run on 50 Hz 3 phase with no difficulty. And the air molecules just get shoved out of the way (a bit noisily)

Your particle accelerator wants quite a few orders of magnitude more speed, so will require a sophisticated power supply, and a darn good vacuum. Trouble is, every experiment you do, you risk destroying the vacuum, and having to pump it out again; it's not like a TV tube, emptied once forever.

And getting a vacuum that good is not a trivial problem; while writing for the 1632 work group I suggested that in that universe going back to thermionic valves ("vacuum tubes" to our transatlantic cousins) rather than attempting the materials purity to make transistors was more likely to give fast results, and gathered a group of school children to make some, and my point. I invented the mercury vapour lamp, but couldn't get a hard enough vacuum to get decent amplification, without using an expensive (and way beyond the technology I was aiming for) laboratory pump.

That said, I wish every success to the project; I would have liked to have been involved, had I been twenty years younger (I've rarely been accused of excess sanity, either)

And if you do find a way of making a decent low-tech vacuum (not what you're looking for, I know, but…) please tell me; there are some people I'd like to astonish.


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## HardScienceFan (Jul 28, 2008)

Chris,you never cease to astound me

Sleptons,gluinos
SUSY

ah the wonderful world of subatomic physics


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## Celeritas (Jul 28, 2008)

TheEndIsNigh said:


> I seem to remember a "Horizon" program some years ago about the project (when it was first muted) I have this memory of animations of the detectors and the like. It may have been a documentary on the previous collider and ended with the outline of the Cern project
> 
> I take it you've read things like the following
> 
> ...



ROFLMFFAO!!

I have no doubt this will be a long and involved project. Mike(my physicist friend) and I have been blathering on the phone about this for quite awhile. we're both really excited. we bounce ideas off each other really well. he'll handle the mathematical nessecities though since he's also my math tutor, he feels this would be an excellent learning experience(translation: mike's insane but likes to hide it behind seemingly logical excuses.)
interesting document, I scanned the first page and will fully consider it when I have a minute.

like I said, this is gonna take a while but we're just crazy enough to try. i'm talking about a betatron by the way...a particle accelerator in my backyard banged together with spare parts is a little ambitious, even for me. =P

chris can I pm you with questions as this thing evolves?


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