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Proton Beams Sent Around the LHC
feldhaus writes "The BBC reports that the first beams for over one year have been successfully sent around the complete circumference of the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to by 0600 GMT on Saturday."
well... at least no killer blackholes were sent across the circumference, that's a good thing right?
Assuming it exists. After all, this is an experiment designed to determine the accurace of a theory, not to confirm it.
Of course, I believe they'll find it. My wife goes to 'mass' every weekend; I'm assuming that's where Higgs particles come from? I wouldn't know, as I haven't gone. You could describe me as 'massless'. :)
Come on, you know someone did it...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I was planning on getting really drunk on December 20th 2012, but maybe I'll get drunk tonight because obviously the earth will disappear tomorrow at 0600GMT
Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to byNO UNIVERSE
http://twitter.com/CERN
SMQ 90AE4B2BC4F6BEAF7340F0B40BA2DEF7340F6BC2D0392
If you disagree, feel free to mod me up!
Won't you all have egg on your faces when the LHC opens the Abyss from Revelations and the Beast and false prophet are able to materialize on the Earth for the first time in ages? The Nephilim from the Old Testament have been psychically manipulating the power elites of Earth in order to secure funding for this demonic Stargate. Source: Satan's Star Gate
I love all these romantic theories about alien or demonic invasion. Sadly, I think that neither that will happen nor will any new particles be discovered. RE: The Tao of Physics - we find what we're looking for in the act of looking for it. Or to paraphrase Eris - the more attention I pay to the number five the more places I see it!!
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
quark smashing across the LHC
on the LEP collider looking for the higgs
quark smashing across the LHC
only smashing protons cos we cant find bosons
theres ATLAS and the CMS, ALICE and LHCb
looking for dark matter and super symmetry
quark smashing across the LHC
on the LEP collider looking for the higgs
quark smashing across the LHC
only smashing protons cos we cant find bosons
theres gluons on the starboard bow but no signs of dark energy
fundamental forces and its link to weak gravity
quark smashing across the LHC
on the LEP collider looking for the higgs
quark smashing across the LHC
only smashing protons cos we cant find bosons
(sung to Star Trekkin')
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this time around. I have a physics prof who's part of the project. Part of our lecture on superconductivity was dedicated to the catastrophic malfunction. There's nothing that conveys the epic nature of the failure like technical language.
According to my professor, they were in too much of a rush to get the thing started they didn't fully test the whole thing. One of the superconducting junctions quenched (transitioned from superconductive to non-superconductive states due to the 7-8 Tesla magnetic field), necessitating the dispersal of IIRC 1500 A of current. This turned insulating copper into plasma which breached the chamber wall and caused the explosive vaporization of 2 tons of liquid helium into the accelerating chamber.
Long story short, it's a very large, complicated, and expensive machine. They'd better sure everything works this time.
Where can I buy a Delorean they are hard to find nowadays? I'm working on the flux gapacitor. I'm adding Nitro to the car so I can go 88 mph in no time and the source of the 1.21 gigawatts is easy for me to get. Its just that darn Delorean. I don't think my Honda Civic will work. Screw it, I'm going to steal a Ferrari.
I can't wait to see what causes it to malfunction this time!
Well, they were successful, here's a picture:
http://fox.nncdn.com/nn/0/142/729/324435.jpg
No problems whatsoever.
Go ahead, ask the question.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Charged particles can be accelarated in an electromagnetic field, but uncharged particles (like neutrons) cannot.
They still have many engineering challenges to complete before the LHC can start looking for the Higgs Boson.
Well, that's a big relief! Wait... Boson? Oh. Never mind.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
For a guy with planck in his name you really need to read up on particle physics A neutron is udd, a proton is uud. Nothing special there, one is magnetic though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_physics
We're doing science and we're still alive.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Because we can control protons (and other charged particles) with electric/magnetic fields. We don't have a way to steer (and accelerate) neutrons (well, there are neat little tricks, but none of them are as powerful).
-Bucky
so if the only difference is one is udd and the other is uud, then the "mass" in each is the same I suppose.
Very nearly. The mass of the proton is 938 MeV; the neutron is 939 MeV. And the physics at a proton-neutron or neutron-neutron collider would be very similar to that at a proton-proton collider. But neutrons are neutral, as you and others have pointed out, and therefore much more difficult to accelerate.
Now you could imagine a collider with a stationary neutron target and a high-energy proton beam. But remember that what you get out depends on the energy as measured in the center-of-mass frame of the colliding particles. To reach the LHC design energy of 14 TeV, you can collide two protons, each with an energy of 7 TeV in the lab frame, or you can collide a neutron at rest and a proton with an energy of ... excuse me while I dig out my TI-85 ... 104 PeV. Holy cow. I don't think anyone here has any idea how to get a 100-PeV beam in a working collider experiment, and I'm sure we don't have the money. So protons it is.
And each would contain roughly the same exotic particles as the other.
I think there's a misconception here. Protons (and neutrons) don't "contain" Higgs bosons, or W and Z bosons, or top quarks, or high-pT jets, or any of the other interesting things that we see at the Tevatron and will see at the LHC. These things are created from the kinetic energy of the two colliding protons. But otherwise yes, if you could find a way to build a neutron collider, you'd see pretty much the same stuff as at a proton collider of the same energy.
Oh, and I must rant:
Please don't call it the "God particle". This unfortunate nickname was coined as a marketing ploy and is not apt. Physicists do not call it the God particle. Reporters call it the God particle. And the main result is that people become confused, frightened, or angry.
I'm tempted to point out that if you're interested in a theory describing the universe we happen to live in, the Higgs boson is far more likely to be relevant than string theory. But maybe I should leave that discussion for another thread.
"Charged particles, on the other hand, may be held at a known location and/or known path with the application of a containment field."
Heisenberg begs to differ.