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One of the Coolest Places In the Universe

Posted by timothy on from the you'll-need-thicker-gloves dept.

phantomflanflinger writes "The Cern Laboratory, home of the Large Hadron Collider, is fast becoming one of the coolest places in the Universe. According to news.bbc.co.uk, the Large Hadron Collider is entering the final stages of being lowered to a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F) — colder than deep space. The LHC aims to re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang and continue the search for the Higgs boson."

4 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can someone code up a clock? by EXTER · · Score: 5, Informative

    LHC Countdown

  2. Re:Another example of useless science journalism by piters · · Score: 5, Informative

    Indeed, getting 1.9K in a lab, or in a single NMR magnet is not a big deal. Try to do it with 1232 huge magnets, spread around 26.6 km, being some 100m underground, and using 7600 km of super-conducting "cable" (270 000 km of superconducting "strand"). This is roughly 4700 tons of material to keep at 1.9K, and 120 tons of helium being recirculated all the time through these stuff to assure 150 kW of HEAT power is dissipated. Noone ever has done a similar cryogenic installation at such scale before!

  3. Re:Curious... by amazeofdeath · · Score: 5, Informative

    HTC technology is not available yet for applications like this. They are using conventional Sn3Ti (and NbTi to some extent) superconductors. I'm not sure how the Wikipedia quote is relevant here. Although the wires in LHC are made of LTS materials, the materials still are type II superconductors. The main reason to have large cooling capacity is a phenomenon called "quenching". The wires in the coils are actually made of really thin filaments of superconducting material inside a copper matrix. These filaments can (and do) go out of superconducting state because of a local problem, and at this small point there's naturally high ohmic heating. If the system can't respond quickly enough to lower the local temperature so that the superconducting state is restored, this point of normal state will start to spread at a high speed, causing more heating and boiling off the coolant quite expensively. So this is the reason why you need large cooling capacity and thermal conductivity.

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    U+F8FF
  4. Re:CERN spin off technologies by Frools · · Score: 5, Informative
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Spinoff
    Health and medicine
    • Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs)
    • Infrared Ear Thermometers
    • Ventricular Assist Device
    • Artificial Limbs

    Transportation

    • Aircraft Anti-Icing Systems
    • Highway Safety
    • Improved Radial Tires
    • Chemical Detection

    Public safety

    • Video Enhancing and Analysis Systems
    • Land Mine Removal
    • Fire-Resistant Reinforcement
    • Firefighting Equipment

    Consumer, home, and recreation

    • Temper Foam
    • Enriched Baby Food
    • Portable Cordless Vacuums
    • Freeze Drying Technology

    Environmental and agricultural resources

    • o Water Purification
    • Solar Energy
    • Pollution Remediation

    Computer technology

    • Virtual reality research
    • Structural analysis software
    • Remotely controlled ovens

    Industrial productivity

    • Powdered Lubricants
    • Improved Mine Safety
    • Food Safety

    :)