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We may not need the LHC or anything like it to find dark matter particles

http://www.symmetrymagazine.or...

There is interest in using diamonds for LHC detectors, due to its superior radiation hardness compared to silicon.
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/april-2012/signal-to-background

If diamond was as cheep as silicon, then they would be using tonnes of it.

Carbon dating is already broken

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/08/23/the-strange-case-of-solar-flares-and-radioactive-elements/

Solar flares (specifically neutrino radiation) affects decay rates of all radioactive materials. Carbon 14 dating assumes that the half-life is fairly constant, but the base level of neutrino radiation could have been much higher or lower for extended periods in the past, making carbon 14 gradually less accurate the farther you go back.

That's an interesting, if off-topic comment. This article was about the influence the Tevatron had on computing, not the influence the LHC had on non-computing technology.

In that context, your comment seems to be comparing and contrasting Fermilab contributions to CERN contributions. But MRI technology owes just as much to the Tevatron (See http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000675). Really, making this a competition between the two labs is silly. The important thing is showing that basic research in particle physics contributed to the development of more practical applications.

Besides, I think everyone reading /. on any semi-regular basis already knows about the whole "capturing anti-matter" thing, so no need to repeat stuff like you're the only one who keeps up on the news.

You're assuming everyone has kept up on this news. It might be new to somebody, in which case this is incredibly helpful.

As much as I enjoy hangin' out with y'all here on /., I very much doubt that anti-matter specialists come here for the latest news on their specialty. Cern Courier, Physics Today, and Symmetry Magazine are fun reading, though perhaps some real physicists (I'm not one) can suggest better.

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/11/26/new-insight-into-primordial-universe-from-the-lhc/

I'm pretty sure plenty of scientists must have looked at this, after all someone had to design the beam dumps. From http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000570

In 2003, two-thirds of the superconducting magnets in the Tevatron’s six-kilometer ring quenched at the same time. The beam drilled a hole in one collimator and created a 30-centimeter groove in another. That accident, while serious, was the only one in the accelerator’s 20-year history, and the machine was back up and running within two weeks. Could something similar happen on a larger scale at the LHC?

“In a bad accident, the beam could go off course and drill a hole through one or two magnets,” says Schmidt. While this would not destroy the LHC, it would still require time and money for repair.

I'm pretty sure something that can drill a hole in a super conducting magnet would make a hole in someone's hand...

Anybody else think this is modern-day snake oil?

No. And on the other hand, no.

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/03/30/lhc-research-program-launched-with-7-tev-collisions/ So according to that article, we did the colliding at 7 TeV and their next goal is 14 TeV in 2013, but it's not clear whether that level of 14 is equivilant to the "big bang". Does anyone know what we need to hit in energy levels to reach that?

Holy crap. My research is relevant to something for once!

We're working on improving the accelerating gradients of linacs. Although I'm not sure that we'll ever get to the point where this technology is practical for use in CT scanners, we've had tremendous improvements over the past few years. Utilizing superconducting accelerating cavities, we've improved acceleration gradients from 5-7MV/m (megavolts per meter) to 35-70MV/m, with further improvements hypothetically possible.

The ILC (International Linear Collider -- the LHC's linear collider cousin) could be up to 50 miles long according to some estimates. CERN believe that they can build a 150MV/m machine, using a novel technique to achieve acceleration (although this has yet to be seen).

SLAC, where this facility is located, was built in 1962, and utilizes copper accelerating cavities, as opposed to the superconducting niobium cavities used in most new big linacs. Further, only the last 1/3 of the accelerator is used for the LCLS (ie. the X-Ray Laser). I haven't done the calculations (nor am I particularly familiar with the LCLS), though I'd imagine that you'd be able to considerably cut down on the size if LCLS were constructed with a new linac.

Here is a nice graphic of what you described about the exclusions for a light-mass Higgs:

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/higgsexclusionplotfy08.jpg

This is from the Symmetry magazine blog:

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/hunt-for-the-higgs-kicking-into-high-gear/

There is a lot of talk about this recently because of the AAAS meeting in Chicago. Also here is another neat article (not related):

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/a-first-string-theory-predicts-an-experimental-result/

This is from the Symmetry magazine blog:

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/hunt-for-the-higgs-kicking-into-high-gear/

There is a lot of talk about this recently because of the AAAS meeting in Chicago. Also here is another neat article (not related):

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/02/16/a-first-string-theory-predicts-an-experimental-result/

There are several mysterious particles that aren't easily identified by the Standard Model. One in particular is the X(3872) particle, which was discovered by Japanese scientists and confirmed by other laboratories. It might be a tetraquark particle or even a meson molecule, but scientists are just guessing for now.

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2008/04/13/the-charming-case-of-x3872/

Turyshevs team calculated the emissions from the Pioneer spacecraft, it found that heat is given off in some directions preferentially, enough to account for 28-36% of the anomalous acceleration.

Source
. The mainstream view is that the effect is most likely due to outgassing from the surface, or thermal radiation pressure Ubiquitous Wiki Link. Having said that, I'm not fully convinced by the pre-print. They still need to make sure they have covered more conventional effects, such as ambient temperature effects on detectors. The variation is small, if significant, and I'd rather wait til it gets through peer review (and their hopefully insightful) comments. If their hypothesis is true, then it's certainly very interesting.

Apparently, yes. But it's not complete ironic as we might imagine, as the uranium nucleus is comparatively larger than other elements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_(unit)
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000258

yes.

If anyone ever needs a reason to wallop copyright, let this quote from the article be that reason;

Most copies of The Blue Book had vanished from the SLAC Library, and the librarians wanted to make it available electronically. But they ran into a snag: No one could figure out who owned the copyright, so there was no one to give permission to put it on the Web.
"It's an orphan work," SLAC archivist Jean Deken told me Friday. The original publisher was bought by another, which was bought by another, and so on. Finally, with the help of an expert from Stanford Law School, librarian Abraham Wheeler tracked down the current owner of the copyright-which said that since it could not find any documentation on the book, it could not grant permission to reproduce it.

It's not a video, but if you have a science-oriented child in your household, Symmetry magazine is a very good choice. It's published by Fermilab and discusses all sorts of things related to scientific discovery, from particle physics to the daily routine of scientists at Fermilab. It's a regular publication and it costs nothing, so it's only a positive for your kid.

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/

Not to mention that, while they're waiting for the accelerator to turn on, the physicists working on the detectors portions (CMS, ATLAS, etc) are already recording cosmic ray interactions to test their systems. Here's a cute article about it:

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000574

Yes, they are.

I always find it interesting how the visual arts community attempts to capture the reality of the world based on the known principles of their day. Looking back through history at the artist rendering of our world provides us with a unique perspective on how wrong we were in describing the world in art.

Art is all about expressing ideas or concepts visually-- Certain portions of the world of science, especially quantum mechanics, are just too weird for us to capture in visual display. Perhaps it will take someone like Dali or Escher to provides us with a view of the quantum world.

There is an error in the website - the bottom row of quarks is not correct.
The pdf version of the site shows the correct models.

I spent forever staring at those incorrect models trying to make sense of them, before realizing that top and down were the same, and that something must be wrong :)