Closing In On The Quark-Gluon Plasma

Martin writes "A series of presentations and a press conference was held today at Brookhaven National Laboratory about new results from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The latest run was finished only a few weeks ago. The results are a new milestone in the search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma, a new state of nuclear matter. The data were analyzed on large Linux clusters at BNL and in Japan and France, with the biggest cluster of about 1100 dual-CPU nodes located at the RHIC Computing Facility. It's nice to see that results are out so soon after the data were taken. There were previous stories about RHIC on /., here(1), here(2) and here(3)."

Comments

Applications?

[krisp]

Recreating something that existed at the time of the formation of the universe is facinating and all, but , what are the practicle applications for this research? How will it benifit mankind?

Re:Applications?

[Auckerman]

Sometimes applications of knowledge are either completely nonobvious or impossible to do at the time of the discovery. This is something people need to accept. Much like GPS was impossible to do even after we understood relativity, we may not see the practical results of this or any other fundamental research well into this century.

Re:Applications?

[Bootsy Collins]

Recreating something that existed at the time of the formation of the universe is facinating and all, but , what are the practicle applications for this research?

Need it have a "practical application"?

How will it benifit mankind?

Well, that's a very different question.

I don't think this will have any practical value, per se. Absolutely zero. Oh, it's possible that down the road someone much cleverer than I will come up with something. In fact, that's the normal way in which major technological advances have occurred. For instance, when Schottky began studying the quantum behavior of transition metals, he wasn't interested in the tiniest bit in any sort of practical application; he just wanted to understand the implications of quantum mechanics for electrons inside certain solids. If you had asked at the time, "what's the practical benefit of this work?" the answer would have been "zippo." And yet pretty much all of modern technology is based upon the transisitor that was so discovered. That's the way it's always been. Michael Faraday didn't really see any public benefit to understanding electromagnetism, either. Pure research has historically been without such obvious benefit.

But nevertheless, I don't want to suggest that that's the eventual result here, because I don't believe it will be. I think that would be disingenuous of me. I highly doubt that an improved understanding of the history of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present will ever produce any wonderful and amazing technological advance. To me, the motivation is simply that understanding and knowledge -- especially of something like how the Universe got to be the way it is, and why it works the way it does -- is inherently a good thing. It has value by definition. Perhaps my least favorite thing about our society is that we are trained to evaluate the worth of things in terms of their economic value. Just like love, understanding has its own value, in my mind -- bereft of any "practical" value.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. To the best of our ability to tell, there's only one place where elements heavier than carbon (such as nitrogen, oxygen, sodium, etc. etc.) can be formed in large amounts -- and that's inside a star. Only elements as heavy as carbon or lighter can be formed in the early universe; for heavier elements, you need a star. Now, if you didn't already know this, stop and think about it for a second. A huge chunk of you, perhaps all of you, was inside a star at one time. It appears that you and I are star debris. And it gets even better. The way that large amounts of these elements, forged within a star, can get out of the star is if the star supernovas -- dies at the end of its lifetime with a big boom. That big boom also serves to make very heavy elements -- such as uranium, for instance -- that cannot be made even in a star while it's burning away. There's uranium, and other similar very heavy elements, on our planet. Do you see what I'm getting at? Much of the atoms that make all of us up, that make this planet up, were at one time inside a star (or stars) that lived its life, supernovaed, and spewed out its stellar debris with heavy elements. Eventually, maybe a few hundred million years later, that stuff is part of our planet, part of our atmosphere, our water, part of you and me. We are all brothers and sisters; we all came from the same place, sorta.

Now, that knowledge will never make me any money. It will never have any practical benefit in my life. And yet, I consider myself immensely richer for knowing it.

Understanding has its own value.

Re:Applications?

[cens0r]

Read this link to answer your questions. To sum this up, the clocks in the satellites don't record the same time as those on earth, because of relativity.

Re:Applications?

[ErfC]

Hear, hear! (Here, here? I can never remember.)

Richard Feynmann also put it well:

Science is like sex: occasionally something useful comes out of it, but that's not why we do it.

Re:Applications?

[confused one]

So, you can honestly say that having a better understanding of, say for example, QCD isn't worth the effort? And you say you have a Ph.D in particle physics?

I sincerely hope you're not teaching; because with an attitude like that, all of your students will be tainted with a distaste for advancing science.

Applications ? Oh well...

[McSnarf]

...the most well-known example of pure science known to man is electricity. Why bother with something that can make frog's legs kick ?

Experience has shown that "pure" research often leads to applications the researchers never imagined.

Cutting research to areas with "immediate applicability" is quite in fashion in some circles. (The same circles, coincidentally, that do not usually do something for the benefit of mankind. Corporates come to mind.)

Re:OK...

[warpSpeed]

But where, ultimately, does this research lead?

We will not know until we get there...

I believe that there is far too little basic research going on these days.

There is nothing more basic then finding out how all this matter/energy around us works.

Re:OK...

[Telastyn]

Well, let's see... One time the cavemen managed to smash certain rocks together and reliably get sparks -> fire. Pretty much the basis of civilization...

Re:Scary Thought

[localghost]

1e12ÂF is 5.56e11ÂC. 1e12ÂC is 1.8e12ÂF. While any of those numbers could be accurately described as "fucking HOT", it still makes a difference. Whether it starts at absolute 0, or 273ÂK above 0 probably doesn't make any difference at this order of magnitude, though.

Re:OK...

[Mr. McGibby]

But where, ultimately, does this research lead?

Nobody knows. That's why it's called research.

True, the verification of a theory isn't really that world-changing, especially when the theory turns out to be correct. It's when an experiment shows that the theory is *incorrect* is when the world changes.

Take the experiments that showed the universe is speeding up. They were simply to try to refine the Hubble constant. No one would've seen that coming. In fact, one might have said, "Why bother ? We know the universe is expanding. How accurate does it need to be?!"

Re:OK...

[mhore]

What, pray tell, could be the useful results of this research? I don't mean to be critical - I believe that there is far too little basic research going on these days. But where, ultimately, does this research lead?

I think this is possibly why you lost interest in physics. We're not always interested in the APPLICATION of knowledge. Sometimes, we just like to know why a particular thing is like it is. We leave the application to the engineers and business men.