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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?
It doesn't seem like there would be a sudden phase change in every part of the condensate. I bet there would be a tiny explosion here and there as little bits of it explode. It would manifest as a slight outgassing.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Isn't amazing that whenever a new technological breakthrough occurs, it's instantly assumed that the End Is Nigh? If anyone remembers, atomic bombs were originally estimated to have a 15% chance to cause complete atmospheric ignition on a planetary scale. Also, it was a "generally well known fact" when cars were invented that going above 50 mph would cause the driver's lungs to collapse from wind pressure, as well as tear off his face. Don't you just love all those nightmare scenarios that keep popping up? It takes all the challenge out of creating new science fiction apocalypse scenarios!
"They also point out that no other superfluid helium handling facility has mysteriously blown itself to pieces."
True, but, no other SFH2 facility was wielding a 1Tev particle beam like it was a toy light saber, either.
Sig this!
An expanding BEC isn't anywhere close to a supernova. This would be similar to snapping the valve off of a liquid helium tank. The guys at CERN could blow themselves up with this, but that's about it. They could blow themselves up lots of ways.
It was called a "bosenova" because it shrinks before it expands, not because it's super destructive.
can we please stop grunting like frightened chimps every time we are on the verge of a new scientific break through?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
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.
Could it be worse than melting a 40-ton magnet, which actually happened?
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Energy doesn't magically come from nowhere.
In this (imaginary) case, the energy in would be that of the magnetic field. Trying to spin this as a possible supernova plays on ignorance, is scaremongering, and is just plain wrong.
When did Slashdot turn into Fox News?
I know it's out of vogue, 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 -- imagine a new energy source we can use to power our further expansion into the universe?
The law of conservation of energy makes for some very unsexy conclusions, like the lhc is probably fairly safe from destroying the universe.
It's been a long time.
well in the experiment in question 50% of the matter 'disappeared' or in other words was converted to energy. a standard fission reactor is converting ounces of matter into energy.
in other words, we're talking about an explosion about 350,000 times larger than hiroshima. i think that's enough energy to crack the earth in half. on the plus side, they were working with rubidium-85, not super fluid liquid helium, oh yeah, and they got the temperature all the way down to 3 billionths of a degree above absolute zero. the abstract does say that liquid helium doesn't have a chance in hell of becoming attractive, as well.
also, in order for half of it to 'disappear' all of the liquid helium would have to become attractive, so i doubt that even if the condition became favorable that enough helium would become attractive to make any big bang... we got a 2 month extension in case the scientist at cert are wrong about helium, and enough of it could become active for enough of it to to convert to energy to create a big enough of an explosion.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
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.
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instanteously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
That's the point of the myth: Apollo granted her the gift of prophesy, then cursed her by making it so nobody would ever believe her predictions.
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.
.
At best, this is one notch above voodoo....
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!
From the summary:
"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. They also point out that no other superfluid helium handling facility has mysteriously blown itself to pieces."
So, a "Bosenova explosion" under LHC-like conditions (1) can't happen according to theory, and (2) hasn't happened according to experiment either. Sheesh. I can concoct LHC disaster scenarios that are impossible according to theory and experiment too. Can I get on the Slashdot front page?
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?
The physics that allow us to build 5GHZ chips at 5nm is due to a thorough understanding of the atom. Our understanding of the atom is due to work done in 'atom smashers' like these.
This is not pointless science. Yes, we don't know what we will find, or how we will use it, but we will find something, and we will find it useful.
I can't say what history will record about the LHC. But it will be important, I can grant yo that.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Does a bosanova put out more energy then you need to put in to cause the reaction? I'm assuming not.
If it does then this a possible energy source, huh? Shouldn't we be looking at harnessing this ala fusion?
If it doesn't, then I gather that no reaction the LHC could pour enough energy into to make happen would do much to the planet.
That's what she said.
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.
which they called a 'Bosenova,' a name that fortunately did not catch on.
Speak for yourself! I like it.
Advice: on VPS providers
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
Lets look at a worst case then -- how bad could it get? Lets assume half of the liquid helium gets converted directly to energy -- just how bad could it be? As it turns out, pretty bad -- not bad like converting the entire universe into strange matter, but bad enough for us -- not any better than sucking the whole planet into a what would eventually be a pea sized black hole. (ok, ok -- black holes don't really have a size, but the event horizon would be pea sized.)
The amount of liquid helium in question? 700,000 litres, right? As we all know, liquid helium has a density of 0.214g/ml. Let's see -- how much energy is released when 7.49E7g of matter are converted into energy? Each gram is roughly equivalent to about 21.5 kilotons of TNT, thus totalling 1,610 Gigatons of TNT -- enough to ruin your day, and mine too.
Now in the wiki article in question they merely mention that half the original mass went "missing" they did not exactly say it all got converted to energy. If even only 5% got converted, I'm pretty sure that would still wipe us all out.
Ian Ameline
I don't know how this FUD even came up. It's such a ridiculous idea to begin with.
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."
Holy shit! We really ARE all gonna die!
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Pardon my snark. We've had particle particle accelerators for HOW long now? This is simply a bigger and better one.
Did we all die from those?
Did we all die when trains got faster than 50Mph?
Did we all die when we were finally able to surpass the sound barrier?
Did we all die in an ignited atmosphere when the Trinity test went off?
This stupid fucking technophobic bullshit is REALLY wearing on my nerves.
If you don't like it, move to Mars already and set up a hunter-gatherer utopia there. Just stop yammering in my fucking ear about how we're going to all kill ourselves fiddling with low mass particle collisions.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
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.
Seriously, next think you know the secretary of state for the bush administration and the heads of the christian coalition and the mackinac conservative think tank are going to announce the LHC is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we're dispatching a carrier group to the area.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Magnetic fields of precisely tuned strengths (not particularly strong fields) can make certain atoms in an ultra-cold, ultra-low-pressure gas attract each other. It is only at much lower temperatures than that of liquid helium, in the more-than-icy stillness of nanokelvin gases, that the gentle collapse and rebound caused by sudden atomic attraction could ever be considered an explosion. 'Bosenova' was an apt name, but only by remote analogy.
The attraction effect does not work on helium, because there are no He-2 molecular states to provide a Feshbach resonance. And it does not work on liquids, because in a liquid the ordinary interactions between atoms are so much stronger anyway than anything this Feshbach effect would induce. It has nothing to do with superfluidity per se; it's a phenomenon of cold, dilute gases, which happen also to become superfluid in some cases. So no LHC liquid helium is going to go Bosenova.
Superconducting magnets themselves are quite dangerous if not handled properly. They can indeed explode: look up 'superconducting magnet quench'. The risk scale here is that of wrecking LHC equipment, however, not of turning the big ring into a crater. And it has nothing to do with Bosenovas.
FWIW, where I work, we operate a superconducting tokamak (Tore Supra) with Niobium-Titanium alloy coils, supercritical helium for cryogeny and pretty nasty magnetic fields everywhere. A quench occured when the machine was switched on the first time (in 1988), because of an identified defect in the superconducting wire. But since then, the magnet has been working flawlessly and the coolant, monitored in real time, never exhibited any kind of unexpected phenomenon.
Also, people have been constantly working on this stuff since then, with even larger currents (hence larger magnetic fields) and I think it's pretty safe to assume that the LHC is gonna be fine (at least this part of the machine).
I admit that in not fully understanding as a whole the general science behind the LHC that I'm hesistant in having the experiment go on. I studied biology but particle physics lost me a long time ago. I think its neat that the technolgy, knowledge and scientists are available to have this experienment come to fruition. Moreover, the contruction of the LHC is amazing.
The problem: The public sees the media as being the credible source of information. Not the physicists at CERN nor independent ones.
I think that the public and media are hesitant to have the experiment go on because they really don't understand or remeber anything about science past 9th grade (if that even). Whether the reason (religion, education, moral, fear, end of the world, conspiracy theory, etc.) it seems that this is the same resistance to other science experiments of the past. Nuclear weapons had the same public reaction (and the world is definately not the same since then). But more comparatively 'simple' things in complexity either science-wise or the ability for the public to understand the science behing it like the Human Genome Project, Stem Cell research, Robotics have met the same media and public resistance. The world will end with Dolly the Sheep.
Particle physics is tough to understand. I've read the articles in the AP and watched some slightly more detailed interviews with CERN scientists. The general public isn't buying it. I think the CERN guys should do a piece for a major magazine(s) or newspaper. PR is where it's at.
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.
A bosenova or bose supernova is a very small, supernova-like explosion, which can be induced in a Boseâ"Einstein condensate (BEC) by changing the magnetic field in which the BEC is located, so that the BEC quantum wavefunction's self-interaction becomes attractive.
In the particular experiment when a bosenova was first detected, this procedure caused the BEC to implode and shrink beyond detection, and then suddenly explode. In this explosion, about half of the atoms in the condensate seem to have disappeared from the experiment altogether, remaining undetected either in the cold particle remnants or in the expanding gas cloud produced.
That's actually pretty interesting. So, it won't happen unless the magnetic field is changed in such a way that the quantum wavefunction becomes self-attractive (whatever that means.) So, don't do that and we're all set? Though, the part about it making atoms disappear is pretty cool. I wonder what actually happens to them...
-SaNo
The LHC is the greatest achievement of humanity to date, yet every other day someone wants to see it destroy the planet in some new, ridiculus way. In my humble opinion physics is probably the one most complex scientific field ( I studied physics for 2 years before i switched to math and comp sci and the latter are a yummy piece of cake compared to the first ) yet every other crazie (and ofc the media) thinks they know more than 3000++ physicists. ;-) )
I mean seriously, if you want the world destroyed just pick some other cause and enjoy what humanity build ( in these last days of time
It's impopssible for superfluid helium to 'go nova'. This impossibility is well understood by theory - It's not that there's a miniscule-but-nonzero chance, as there is that the LHC could spontaneously produce tiny dragons - In this case it's *impossible*.
Here's the explanation:
http://anticrackpot.blogspot.com/2008/09/there-will-be-no-bose-novae-at-lhc.html
And a personal request: Take a second to look some of this stuff up before you post an article like this that fuels unfounded (indeed, indefensible) fears.
Ideology breeds Hypocrisy. Just how much is up to you.