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Another Way the LHC Could Self-Destruct
KentuckyFC writes "Just when you thought it was safe to switch on the LHC (though it won't be for a while yet), another nightmare scenario has emerged that some critics worry could cause the particle accelerator to explode. The culprit this time is not an Earth-swallowing black hole but a 'Bose supernova' in the accelerator's superfluid helium bath. Physicists have been playing with Bose Einstein Condensate (BECs) for over 10 years now. But in 2001, one group discovered that placing them in a powerful magnetic field could cause the attractive forces between atoms to become repulsive. That caused their BEC to explode in a Bose supernova — which they called a 'Bosenova,' a name that fortunately did not catch on. This was little more than a curiosity when only a microscopic blob of cold matter was involved. But superfluid liquid helium is also BEC. And physicists have suddenly remembered that the LHC is swimming in 700,000 liters of the stuff while being zapped by some of the most powerful magnetic fields on the planet. So is the LHC a Bose supernova waiting to go off? Not according to the CERN theory division, which has published its calculations that show the LHC is safe (abstract). They also point out that no other superfluid helium handling facility has mysteriously blown itself to pieces."
Let me assure you, there is nothing to be worried about. I'm watching a couple of guys fiddle with some of the magnets right now and they assure me that nothing can go wro
Does this mean we can just blame it on the Bosenova?
Blame it on the Bosenova.
Q: What's funnier than running the world's largest particle collider while the janitor is inside, cleaning the pipes?
A: Nothing
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
The problem is that the LHC has caused the production of strange moron particles, which seem to bump into normal people and turn them into more strange morons. The collective outgassing of stupidity causes a supernova brain implosion.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Or it could split the planet wide open if the uninformed hyperbole gets to hot and detonates.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
and we used to blow stuff up for fun when I was a kid. Now I work in an MRI research lab.
This sounds like something I need to try tomorrow.
We evaluate speculation about the possibility of a dangerous release of energy within the liquid Helium of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) cryogenic system due to the occurrence of a "Bose-Nova". Bose-Novae are radial bursts of rapidly moving atoms which can occur when a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) undergoes a collapse due the interatomic potential being deliberately made attractive using a magnetic field close to the Feshbach resonance. Liquid 4He has a monatomic structure with s-wave electrons, zero nuclear spin, no hyperfine splitting, and as a consequence no Feshbach resonance which would allow one to change its normally repulsive interactions to be attractive. Because of this, a Bose-Nova style collapse of 4He is impossible. Additional speculations concerning cold fusion during these events are easily dismissed using the usual arguments about the Coulomb barrier at low temperatures, and are not needed to explain the Bose-Einstein condensate Bose-Nova phenomenon. We conclude that that there is no physics whatsoever which suggests that Helium could undergo any kind of unforeseen catastrophic explosion.
Well, I am glad that is made clear.
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instanteously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
If perchance, the beams were improperly calibrated and they missed the normal intercept point and ended up crossing at another point in the collider.
Crossing the streams, that would be bad.
Okay! Important Safety Tip. Don't cross the Streams.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
What happens when I put the crystal in with the super fluid helium and the magnetic fields? Will the Combine show up and take over the world in less than 24 hours?
It could go on national TV and make ludicrous claims about it's foreign policy experience and parrot republican campaign points.
Moonwatcher said to ask you to please quite disparaging semi-simian anthropoids. After all, HE's not frightened, and he's got a big black (or clear, if you prefer the book) slab to back him up.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
but I'd like to point out that if the LHC were to explode in a fireball whose energy exceeded the energy we put into it, it'd be a good thing for science
Yes, ultimately the discovery would mean cheap energy for any remaining continents.
I don't want the LHC to power our expansion into space. I quite like the planet where it is.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I'm sure glad there's more certainty in economic and finance theory than physics; otherwise banks would be ....... we're fucked
Table-ized A.I.
it was louis armstrong who landed on the moon do some reserch
It went on line and the economy crashed.
Coincidence? I think not. Clearly it takes unbalanced chaotic systems and collapses them into the state most likely to actualize. The cloud of dreams which has been our economy since Reagan began inflating it with voodoo has been begging to collapse for some time. Thank-you Higgs Boson! Clearly, the LHC is a kind of Probability Drive.
I look forward to seeing what will happen next when they get it up and running again. If they run it in reverse, maybe it will turn missiles into potted plants and whales.
-FL
They should have seen this one coming, what usually follow a large hardon collision? All this talk about tunnels and holes don't help either.
The probability is a lot lower than finding somebody like Spiderman stopping a train that was runaway due to being struck by lightning because Tesla rose from his grave to acknowledge the bottle-nose dolphins for saying "So long, and thanks for all the fish."
And now we finally know how the ancient Atlantians created the moon and killed off the dinosaurs all at once.
Failure to follow this advice may result in non-deterministic behavior.
Oh noes! Helium is fusing inside the Sun. Run!
Depends which side you ask.
None, because after careful analisis we've determined it won't happen
-Science
An explosion that would likely cause the END OF THE UNIVERSE AND KILL GOD! (add video clip of a van exploding)
-Fox News (story at 11)
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
But you're wrong. We're recreating big band like conditions.
Boogie woogie daddy, 8 branes to D bar.
One wrong Bosenova and there ain't no there where you are.
You may think it strange, but it's got its own charm.
The galaxy would still swing with one less arm.
Wail on that sassy brass, Satchmo.
Play it cool right down to 0 K.
Let's make everything one big Quantum Event.
Who needs this planet anyway?
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Obviously you are BIASED because you work in the industry! Why should we believe YOU? Just because it WORKED? What kind of idiots do you take us for?
The kind who actually understand science?
Man... are you in for a surprise. Sorry, but we're just the general public, who can't be bothered to learn how our garbage disposal really works. Too gross.
I'm not sure I understand the physics as explained in TFA. Can anyone provide a car analogy?
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