Large Hadron Collider sees first collisions
Summary
The world's largest particle accelerator has performed its first collisions, and its first beam acceleration.
Topics
The world's largest particle accelerator has performed its first collisions, and its first beam acceleration.
Progress on the giant experiment has been rapid in the four days since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was restarted, CERN director of communications James Gillies told ZDNet UK on Tuesday.
"These collisions are the first in the LHC at all," said Gillies. "We've been going into new territory. It's been going quite remarkably fast."
Gillies told ZDNet UK that not only had scientists recorded the first collisions of protons on Monday, but that overnight one of the beams had been accelerated.
For more, read "Beams all round as LHC progress accelerates" on ZDNet UK.
Talkback Most Recent of 12 Talkback(s)
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its work and we are not dead yet
damn it .... not end of the world party
Quebec-french24th Nov 2009 -
Won't go full power until 2012...
Abotu the 21st of December.
No_Ax_to_Grind24th Nov 2009 -
Is This A Mayan Calendar Segue?
Cool segue from LHC to the Mayan Calendar Long Count.
PieceofPaper51@...24th Nov 2009 -
Give It Time!!
It takes awhile for the microscopic Black hole to consume enough matter to destroy the planet. Let's see the mass of the earth is 5.9736?1024 kg. The mass of the micro black hole is approximately 2.35862?{-2538}. Taking into account the variances of the polar magnetic alignment and the logarithmic acceleration of the conversion of terrestrial mass to black hole mass, the core of the earth should be sufficiently destabilized for complete collapse in appriximatlely 26945 hours.
Scubajrr24th Nov 2009 -
Well...
You have to consider, that a microscopic black hole could only
take in microscopic particles.
It's volume will increase as the cube of it's mass.
So for a very long time, it will nibble on electrons, and its' mass
will creep up.
Until one day, it gulps down a Proton.
Soon it will be swallowing whole hydrogen atoms, and by the
time it gets to 1/64ths of an inch in diameter it will be scooping
up magma at a huge rate.
While the mass of the Earth will remain unchanged, as the matter
in the center of the Earth is swallowed vulcanism will shut down.
Shortly thereafter the Earth's magnetic field will collapse, and we'll
be bombarded by solar radiation.
IF there's enough friction to slow it down, the black hole's orbit
will stabilize at the center of the Earth, and once it's consumed
the magma it will stop growing.
The question is, will the remaining shell of rocky crust be able to
support the weight of the oceans without having the support of
the magma.
I suspect... not. So the oceans will flood into the Core, and the
resulting steam explosion will destroy all life on Earth.
The good news is, the last stages should only take a day or so.
Jkirk327924th Nov 2009 -
Socratesfoot25th Nov 2009 -
Relax and enjoy
So if the calculations are correct, then they might just coincide with the Mayan calendar. Interesting. Could we be possibly the cause of our own demise?
I subscribe to the theory the worlds been ending one way or another since it started. Many have predicted our planet will end one way or another. If and when it comes...what are you going to do about it? Not much you can the way I see it.
But wouldn't it be great to get that last E mail out to the center telling them "SEE, WE TOLD YOU!!!!!" right before everything goes black
zdnetregistration25th Nov 2009 -
RE: Large Hadron Collider sees first collisions
Well ... the last stages should only take a day or so. Does it matter, given the numerous opportunities for mass distruction offered? Not surprising that 'intelligent' (sic) life never evolves much past this stage.
igneous neo24th Nov 2009 -
History Repeats Itself ...
I thought the Intelligent life got to a little past this point ... you know ... space travel.
THEN - we blew ourselvies back into the stone age.
SO ... all the UFO reports are the past people coming back to check on us ... help us get back to the point they were some 10,000 years ago. About the time of Atlantis.
So they can do a hostile take over and continue where they left off.
PieceofPaper51@...24th Nov 2009 -
RE: Large Hadron Collider sees first collisions
"... It's been going quite remarkably fast."..
Yeah, I'd say 99.99 % of the speed of
light is PDQ.
ProfQuill24th Nov 2009 -
RE: Large Hadron Collider sees first collisions
I am sorry to read the junk comments from the other posters here. This is a real science story and all you can do is make jokes about it and refer to the Mayan long calender.
The beam was accelerated from its initial injection energy of 450 giga-electron-volts (GeV) up to 540 GeV.
This is nothing.
They hope to reach 1.2 tera-electron-volts before the Christmas break.
And this is next to nothing. It is about 3 times the starting energy. They are starting it slowly and going very slow until they are sure it is working to specs. Then they can continue from there, again slowly.
Fermilab outside of Batavia, Illinois has generated a dual beam with 1.96 TeV.
In 1995 they announced the discovery of the top quark. The top quark is a subatomic particle
Theorized by Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa in 1973.
Much of this info comes from Wikipedia. With some from Fermilab and other sources found with Google.
Me_too26th Nov 2009 -
Not me
I'm thrilled that they're making progress, and my only regret is that the US is not more involved than it already is.
Discovering gravitons, boson higgs, or how these particles react with other dimensions is very cool stuff.
My original comment was a snuff at those who honestly believed this would destroy the planet.
crazydanr@...6th Feb 2010
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