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LHC Fully Documented Online

Posted by kdawson on from the twenty-seven-kilometers-of-documentation dept.

Physicser writes "Want to read every single technical detail of the design and construction of the Large Hadron Collider and its six detectors? The whole shebang — seven reports totaling 1600 pages, 115 MB, with contributions from 8000 scientists and engineers — has been published electronically by the Journal of Instrumentation, free to read without a subscription."

36 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Want to read every single technical detail...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Not particularly.

    1. Re:Want to read every single technical detail...? by Ethanol-fueled · · Score: 4, Informative

      Then read the abstracts.

      Hint: click on the word "abstract". It's turtles all the way down.

    2. Re:Want to read every single technical detail...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually you should. If you read between the lines--or better yet check the hidden information in the PDFs, you will find that they are hiding a certain set of circuitry labeled "B/H RETENT PD" with one dial normally set to 0. It's other setting: >0. And right under it there is a green indicator light with a label "DOOMSDAY DEVICE ACTIVE."

      What does that mean? Don't touch that dial!

    3. Re:Want to read every single technical detail...? by jgeeky · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Beautiful pun, if that was your intention. So far, I don't think the other posters have gotten it. It was glorious!

      --
      in the immortal words of socrates, "i drank what?"
    4. Re:Want to read every single technical detail...? by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's like a giant hula-hoop(TM), lying on the ground, with tiny bits of things forced to circle inside it until they collide with one another, which results in the Earth disappearing into a black hole.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    5. Re:Want to read every single technical detail...? by numbware · · Score: 5, Funny

      Even better explained here.

      --
      I'm going to go create my own technology news site, with blackjack and hookers. You know what? Forget the news site.
  2. PR0N! by Brain_Recall · · Score: 4, Funny
    Nerd porn at its finest.

    This is something to download, store away, and reminisce some 30 years later.

  3. I would but.... by east+coast · · Score: 5, Informative

    It would be a great read if I was one of the ten people on the face of the planet who could actually understand every detail. Oh, sorry, that's the people who wrote it.

    I know it's going to get downloaded a ton of times and probably deleted before most readers ever get to the 3rd page, if it's even read at all.

    Save them poor guys some bandwidth, torrent it. Too many people are going to be wasting their resources with no serious intentions of reading the contents.

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    1. Re:I would but.... by kesuki · · Score: 4, Interesting

      well, they have the abstracts... you don't have to download the whole thing... but having read one abstract, i'm lost in the technical jargon, that large particle collider scientists write about without hesitation.

      "Abstract. The TOTEM Experiment will measure the total pp cross-section with the luminosity-independent method and study elastic and diffractive scattering at the LHC. To achieve optimum forward coverage for charged particles emitted by the pp collisions in the interaction point IP5, two tracking telescopes, T1 and T2, will be installed on each side in the pseudorapidity region 3.1 || 6.5, and Roman Pot stations will be placed at distances of ±147 m and ±220 m from IP5. Being an independent experiment but technically integrated into CMS, TOTEM will first operate in standalone mode to pursue its own physics programme and at a later stage together with CMS for a common physics programme. This article gives a description of the TOTEM apparatus and its performance."

      --
      https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
    2. Re:I would but.... by Matt+Edd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People should keep this kinda stuff in mind when bashing scientists (like intelligent design supporters, anti-vaccination people, and other alternative medicine supporters.) The experts in a field really are experts. The argument from authority fallacy only applies to people talking outside of their field.

    3. Re:I would but.... by Maelwryth · · Score: 4, Funny

      I found the abstract perfectly understandable. All you have to do is translate from english to greek and then greek to english. This gives you a very clear discription in laymans terms.

      Summary. The experience of Totem will measure the intersection of pp completed by the method of brightness and independent study and the rubber band diffractive dispersing the LHC. To fulfill the best possible coverage for advanced charged particles issued by conflicts pp mutual action show télescopes IP5, two of pistage, T1 and T2, will be installed on each side of the region of pseudofastness 3,1 | | 6,5 and Roman stations Pot will be at a distance of 147 meters ±

      --
      I reserve the write to mangle english.
    4. Re:I would but.... by moosesocks · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is interesting, because this is exactly the sort of thing that Tim Berners Lee sought to avoid when he envisioned the semantic web.

      These papers and abstracts should be properly hyperlinked to other papers (or even a google search) to properly define what many of these terms mean. A lot of the jargon seems specific to either accelerator science, or even just the LHC.

      I am a physicist who has worked on accelerator applications, and could only barely understand that abstract. It's very poorly written, and makes a far too extensive use of very specific jargon/acronyms to be comprehensible to even a physicist that happens to not be affiliated with the LHC.

      Even an undergraduate should know better than to write an abstract like that. The general incomprehensibility, the use of extremely specific and unnecessary information ("±147 m and ±220 m from IP5") would be perfectly sufficient justification for a failing grade.

      I'm truly ashamed of my colleagues for writing this.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    5. Re:I would but.... by jabernathy · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Abstract. The TOTEM Experiment will measure the total pp cross-section with the luminosity-independent method and study elastic and diffractive scattering at the LHC. To achieve optimum forward coverage for charged particles emitted by the pp collisions in the interaction point IP5, two tracking telescopes, T1 and T2, will be installed on each side in the pseudorapidity region 3.1 || 6.5, and Roman Pot stations will be placed at distances of ±147 m and ±220 m from IP5. Being an independent experiment but technically integrated into CMS, TOTEM will first operate in standalone mode to pursue its own physics programme and at a later stage together with CMS for a common physics programme. This article gives a description of the TOTEM apparatus and its performance."

      The TOTEM experiment will measure the total pp (proton-proton) cross-section (probability of collision) with the luminosity-independent method (does not depend on the amount of incoming particles) and study elastic and diffractive scattering (particle and wave scattering) at the LHC. To achieve optimum forward (close to the beam-pipe) coverage for charged particles emitted by the pp collision in the interaction point (where the beams cross) IP5, two tracking telescopes (planes of silicon or something that can detect charge particles), (named) T1 and T2, will be installed on each side in the pseudorapidity (the angle above the beampipe) region 3.1 (~5 degrees) || 6.5 (1 degree), and Roman Pot stations (to measure the luminosity) will be placed at distances of +- 147m and +-220m from IP5 (those distances from where the particles collide). Being an independent experiment but technically integrated into CMS (the Compact Muon Spectrometer), TOTEM will first operate in standalone mode to pursue it's own physics programme...

    6. Re:I would but.... by Gromius · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I understand every word. Any experimental particle physicist does. I will conceed its not clearn to non-experts.

      However an important feature of a luminosity and diffractive phyics detector such as TOTEM is its coverage, ie at what angle it can go to. Therefor its pseudorapidy range (basically the angle it covers from the beam line) and the distances of the roman pots from CMS (and effecting the angular coverage of this part of the detector) are key peices of information. This is perhaps the most important thing to know about TOTEM.

    7. Re:I would but.... by mcelrath · · Score: 4, Informative
      Okay, why not...
      • pp: proton - proton
      • cross-section: particle interaction rates are measured using "cross section". Imagine a billiard ball colliding with another a billiard ball. The cross section is just it's area seen from one side: pi r^2. But quantum particles are not hard solid spheres and can pass through each other, resulting in cross sections much smaller. The unit here is the "barn" = 10^-28 m^2. The total p p cross section is about a milli-barn. Higgs is about a pico-barn. Z bosons are about a nano-barn.
      • luminosity: inverse of a cross section. This is how we measure the amount of data. It is the "intensity" of the beam. (luminosity)*(cross section) = number of (expected) collisions. The LHC is expected to collect about 1 inverse femtobarn in the first year of operation, and 300 total.
      • elastic scattering: p p -> p p. Used to measure luminosity. (TOTEM's primary function)
      • diffractive scattering: p p -> p p + X. This has been proposed as a high precision but low rate way to detect the X=Higgs. In this scenario, TOTEM sees the final p p and X ends up inside the CMS detector. (TOTEM's other primary function)
      • pseudorapidity: a measure of angle: \eta = -ln \tan \theta/2. At \eta=\infinity, \theta=0 and at \eta=0, \theta=90 degrees. Pseudorapidity has nicer properties under Lorentz Transformations than angle.
      • Roman Pot: a particle detector device which is lowered into the beam line to detect particles traveling very close to the beam. It detects protons scattered by very small angles.

      There's a reason a Ph.D. takes 4-6 years. Gotta learn all this.

      P.S. TOTEM is one of the minor experiments. Now go read about CMS and ATLAS. :)

      Disclaimer: I am an American theoretical physicist at CERN.

      --
      1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
    8. Re:I would but.... by mcelrath · · Score: 4, Informative

      yes.

      --
      1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
    9. Re:I would but.... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If Richard Feynman himself showed up and told me something crazy about theoretical physics, I'd be like, "you fool, that's crazy."

      From what I've studied, everything in theoretical physics is crazy.

      Perhaps I misunderstood you.

      I think you're conflating issues. When you're in a field, it's your job to question everything the other experts in the field claim, especially when the claims are dramatic or unexpected. When you're not in a field and want to know something about it, then it's perfectly OK to use experts analysis as a baseline for further study.

      It's not OK to dismiss all the experts in that field as crackpots just because you don't understand what they're saying. For instance, if Feynman showed up and told me that there are charm quarks, then I'd be unjustified in dismissing him. That's what ID and anti-vaccine folks do all the time: reject all authority they disagree with. Call it "appeal to anti-authority".

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  4. Cool! I'm going to get started on mine right away! by maillemaker · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you need me, I'll be in my basement.

    --
    A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
  5. Look at this way... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...1600 pages for every detail of the making of a LHC, 6546 pages in the specs for OOXML and it's still not enough detail to let you open and create OOXML documents. Obviously the LHC is not adequately complex.

  6. This is Slashdot... by aztektum · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't you mean your parent's basement?

    --
    :: aztek ::
    No sig for you!!
  7. Safe from black holes by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 4, Funny

    At sixteen hundred pages, it can only create about a fourth of the suckiness of the OOXML standard. Since that hasn't generated a black hole - except for maybe a few terabytes of lost data here and there - we should be safe.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  8. Simple introduction... by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's a hobby, I'm way outside of the brainpower to do the math.

    So I found some videos and articles to help me out: YouTube to the rescue Warning there's some crap with bird in there.

    Finding the Higg's Boson is the big prize, if they find it it will help with this which disrupts the notion of black holes as "singularities" and raises some philosophical, and religious questions... largely if the theorized particle is not found.

    Also interesting is the evaporating black hole theory, which is all but proven so don't worry (Cough CNN).

    Personally I've always been facinated by Virtual particles and am curious about the implication of examining non-singularity black holes.

    Enjoy it, it's gonna be cool as hell!

  9. I found a vulnerability... by Shag · · Score: 5, Funny

    On page 867, there's mention of a two-meter-wide thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The exhaust shaft leads directly to the reactor system, and a precise hit would start a chain reaction which should destroy the LHC.

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
    1. Re:I found a vulnerability... by Koiu+Lpoi · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm afraid the LHC will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

  10. What 30 years later? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought that there will be no 30 years later after they turn on the machine...

    1. Re:What 30 years later? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you end up in some evil mirror universe where W became President instread of Gore you could use the plans to build another LHC to get back home.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    2. Re:What 30 years later? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 4, Funny

      W+ or W-?
      And what's with Z?

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  11. Neat! by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Funny

    I especially like appendix B, or "Build Your Own Large Hadron Collider"

    I totally have a project for this weekend!

    Home Depot has extra large superconducting electromagnets, right?

  12. Great... by Perseid · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...now we have to worry about random third-world countries building weapons of mass-collision.

  13. Re:Okay, other options by SEWilco · · Score: 4, Funny

    Being able to duplicate an experiment is important to science, so we obviously need many people to build Large Hadron Colliders. I'm not doing anything this weekend, so where's the party?

  14. This is outrageous! by bit01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are they mad? The work of thousands of scientists published on line for all to see. A reasonable generic copyright license. All downloadable.

    What about the poor deserving lawyers? Where is the DRM? The commercial propaganda about "IP"? The hundred page license? The attempts by assorted hangers on to profit at other people's expense?

    I think the lawyers should form a class action lawsuit for loss of income. It's just not right that somebody should be able to do something without numerous lawyers attached.

  15. Re:Okay, other options by the_womble · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think we need stronger laws to prevent the pirating of particle colliders.

  16. Re:Okay, other options by Starayo · · Score: 4, Funny

    My house is rather small. Perhaps I could build a Medium, or even a Small Hadron Collider?

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  17. You are not the intended audience by rasmack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am not in TOTEM (other side of the ring) but I understand the abstract just fine and consider it an immensely valuable contribution to the physics programme of the LHC.

    These weren't written to be read end to end by the layman. They were meant as reference publications for professionals. I don't know how I would have gotten through my ph.d. without publications like these. Where else do I get the exact layout of the ATLAS semi-conductor tracker? Where else do I look for the muon momentum resolution of CMS vs. ATLAS? I am sorry if you think that renders them incomprehensible but this is what we need.

  18. Funny? by vainov · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't it funny that the entire LHC spec is 1.600 pages, while the OOXML documentation, as submitted by Microsoft, is a full 6.000 pages.
    Does this reflect a difference in complexity, or is it a sign of something else?

  19. Some of us have better taste by Moraelin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Please try not to picture a fat sweaty nerd in a loincloth defending the entrance to his parent's basement from all comers.

    Well, first of all, some of us have better taste than to wear a loincloth. A robe and wizard hat, for example, is much more stylish and comfortable for the aspiring sorcerer or warlock. A toga picta works too, for the aspiring Emperor. Well, at least until mom catches wind that you dyed one of her bedsheets purple ;)

    But a loincloth? Ugh. We're civilized people, not some barbarians.

    Second, some of us have our own basement to defend, thank you very much. I mean, have you tried taking over the world from your mom's basement? Ooer, talk about frustrating. It would go sorta like this.

    Me: "Now we open the prayer books to the dark invocation psalm and..."
    Mom (poking her head in): "Anyone want milk and cookies?"
    Cultist 1: "I'll have some, please."
    Cultist 2: "Me too."
    Me: "Mooom!!"
    Mom: "Oh, hush. Nice dress, by the way."
    Me: "Mom, it's a robe."
    Mom: "Sure it is. I just want you to know me and dad support your lifestyle choices."
    Cultist 3: "Told you it looks gay."
    Cultist 1: "Yeah."
    Me: "Mom, you're interrupting our invocation!"
    Mom: "Oh, hush, I'm your mom, I'm allowed to. What are you guys playing anyway? Dungeons and Dragons?"
    Me: "No, it's serious. And you can start calling me High Overlord Moraelin the First."
    Mom: "High, huh? Well, you know me and dad don't approve of _that_, but I guess it would explain a few things."
    Cultist 4: "Heh!"
    Me: "*sigh* Where are the sacrificial dagger and the sacred chalice anyway?"
    Mom: "You mean our kitchen knife? I put it in the dishwasher, together with that plastic cup you had there. They were getting ridiculously dirty, and it's just not healthy."
    Cultist 3: "Told ya."

    A trip to the kitchen later:

    Group chanting: "Nigrae legiones, ferus imperator, sinus occultus, fatum terminatum"
    Mom (poking nose in again): "By the way, I'm going to sleep. Try to keep the noise down, please."
    Me: "Ok, mom."
    Mom: "By the way is that the chorus from Das Omen?"
    Me: "No, it's an ancient and sacred invocation.."
    Cultist 2: "Nah, I googled it, it's E Nomine."
    Cultist 1: "Owned."
    Cultist 4: "I thought you said you only listened to metal?"
    Me: "Gah! Fine by me, chant Dies Irae if it makes you feel any better."
    Cultist 3: "Why do we have to chant in Latin anyway?"
    Me: "Because we're summoning an arsehole of a demon, and he wants it that way."
    Mom: "Anyway, keep it down and turn off the lights when you're done, ok?"
    Me: "Ok, mom. Now where were we?"
    Cultist 3: "You know, screw this. Let's skip the henchman and work for the real overlord. Do you happen to need some accolytes, Mrs?"
    Cultist 1: "Seconded."
    Cultist 2: "No kidding."
    Cultist 4: "Actually, I'm out of here. I promised mom I'll be home by eleven anyway."

    (Disclaimer: it's fiction.)

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.