Large Hadron Collider Struggling

Writing in the NY Times, Dennis Overbye covers the birthing pangs and the prospects for CERN's Large Hadron Collider (which we have discussed numerous times). "The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections. [And] many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies. Some physicists are deserting the European project, at least temporarily, to work at a smaller, rival machine [Fermilab's Tevatron] across the ocean. ... Technicians have spent most of the last year cleaning up and inspecting thousands of splices in the collider. About 5,000 will have to be redone... Retraining magnets is costly and time consuming, experts say, and it might not be worth the wait to get all the way to the original target energy [of 7 TeV]. Many physicists say they would be perfectly happy if the collider never got above five trillion electron volts. Dr. Myers said he thought the splices as they are could handle 4 [TeV]. 'We could be doing physics at the end of November,' he said in July, before new vacuum leaks pushed the schedule back a few additional weeks. 'It's not the design energy of the machine, but it's 4 times higher than the Tevatron,' he said."

Comments

Struggles to find no Higgs

[sweetser]

The Higgs will not be necessary when gravitational theory is correctly unified with the other 3 forces of Nature. Think about it. The standard model is about 3 of the 4 known forces of Nature: EM, the weak, and the strong force. Problem is all that is done for particles with Zero mass. The Higgs mechanism fixes this obvious problem without breaking the symmetries of the other 3 (U(1), SU(2), and SU(3)) using a cute Mexican hat trick.

When gravity is unified with the other 3 forces, there will be no need for the Mexican hat trick because gravitational mass will break the symmetry politely. Of course I know how to do this by first writing the Maxwell equations using quaternions, then doing a rewrite using hypercomplex numbers to nab gravity because Nature uses two sets of division algebra, thus outfoxing the string theory clowns by being clever in 4D.

Doug
visualphysics.org

Re:5000 bad joints != cutting edge, It's ineptitud

[ground.zero.612]

Yeah, because the American attempt to create a collider on this scale turned out really well, didn't it? I'm sure you might want to bring up the Apollo programme next; I will have to concede though, that the Saturn V really was a remarkable piece of German engineering.

Americans thinking they are better than everyone else used to annoy me, now it just seems pathetic.

First, we are better, and that's one reason we left most of Europe behind, then kicked your asses out of our new land to prove it, then saved your asses from yourselves and your remarkable Germans.

Second, I think your post is inflammatory.

Third, when people defect from Germany, they are no longer "Germans."

Last, YAEEF4TL (Yet Another Epic European Fail 4 THE LOSE)

Re:5000 bad joints != cutting edge, It's ineptitud

[damburger]

First is bullshit. Americans are, by objective testing, fatter and stupider than Europeans. Second is hypocritical given your posts. Third is splitting a retarded hair.

But apparently, I'm the troll, for pointing out how idiotic your mindless nationalism is. Oh well.