Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

LHC To Start Back Up In November At Half Power

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the no-blackholes-here dept.

mcgrew writes to mention that the Large Hadron Collider, smasher of particles, will get another chance to prove itself this November. The restart will begin with tests at half power, a mere 7 trillion electron volts (TeV), and ramp up slowly to the designed goal of 14 TeV. "Measurements indicate that some of the electrical connections could not safely handle the amount of current needed to run at the full 14 TeV, so will need to be replaced before dialing up the energy that far. But even 7 TeV is much higher than physicists have ever probed in the laboratory before. The Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, is the current record holder, with collisions at 2 TeV."

11 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Only half by swaq · · Score: 5, Funny

    Good, only half the universe will be destroyed. =)

    1. Re:Only half by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Looks like they are right on schedule for their planned full power-up on December 21, 2012.

    2. Re:Only half by epiphani · · Score: 5, Funny

      There is actually a website available here that monitors the situation and gives real-time updates on the status of the LHC.

      --
      .
    3. Re:Only half by Woogiemonger · · Score: 4, Funny

      There is actually a website available here that monitors the situation and gives real-time updates on the status of the LHC.

      What's amusing is if you view the page source of that link. There's even a nifty comment there: "if the lhc actually destroys the earth & this page isn't yet updated please email mike@frantic.org to receive a full refund" Going to email Mikey and ask for a refund. Maybe he won't check.

    4. Re:Only half by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Meh. You have to wait for someone to manually update that page. You'd be better off checking the status yourself with the internal and external webcams.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Temporary! by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Informative

    One thing missing from the summary is that 3.5 TeV/beam is only (hoïpefully) a very temporary setup. The ramp up to 5TeV/beam, or 10 TeV centre of mass energy should be quick rapid if everything works. Going to the full 7 TeV will take longer though.

  3. Re:So, by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    they've been soldering those wires. They should you thicker ones if they want higher current

    I was at BestBuy a few years ago and heard the blue-shirted drone tell these guys "Look, you have to use Monster Cable for your Hadron collider."

    Did they listen? No!

    .

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  4. Fun with units... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Funny

    It always kinda amuses* me to remember that 7 TeV is equal to ~1 microJoule. So this incredibly massive and complicated machine is required just to reach energies that are a million times less than what I can get by flicking my pinky finger. Though they do put all that energy into a single subatomic particle and carefully guide them into hitting each other right in front of their detectors, while every time I try to flick a proton with my finger I end up hitting a ton of them and they go flying off every which way, so I guess we still need the LHC.

    * Yes I am easily amused, why do you ask?

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  5. Only 7TeV? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'll be more impressed when they turn it up to 11.

  6. Re:Meh. by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 4, Funny

    If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour ... you're gonna see some serious shit.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  7. The actual plan by andre.david · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi,

    We were just briefed at CERN of the plan. It is a plan. Plans can change. With that proviso:

    0 - get the beams circulating at injection energy (from last year's experience, this happened in one week)

    1 - take some collision data at injection energy (450 GeV/c per beam => 900 GeV at center-of-mass or half the Tevatron) (from last year's experience, this could be only another week)

    2 - CERN will observe the annual closure from Dec 19 to Jan 3.

    3 - ramp the energy up to 3.5 TeV/c per beam (7 TeV center-of-mass energy, 3.6x more than the Tevatron)

    4 - take enough data to be competitive with 20 years of Tevatron in some topics

    5 - ramps the energy to 5 TeV/c per beam (10 TeV center-of-mass energy, 5 times more than the Tevatron)

    6 - inject lead-ions and have some Pb+Pb collisions at around 2.75 TeV center-of-mass energy? (that would be 13 times more energy than Brookhaven's RHIC Au+Au)

    7 - shutdown and work on getting the machine ready for 7 TeV/c per beam

    Thank you for your attention.