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LHC Reaches Over One Trillion Electron Volts

The LHC has become the world's highest-energy particle accelerator, weighing in at over one trillion electron volts. "Until now the LHC had been operating at a relatively low energy of 450 billion electron volts. On Sunday, engineers increased the energy of this 'pilot beam,' reaching 1.18 trillion electron volts at 2344 GMT. The previous record of 0.98 trillion electron volts has been held by the Tevatron accelerator since 2001. The LHC is eventually expected to operate at some seven trillion electron volts."

9 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. No collisions yet, right? by Gopal.V · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Are these with collisions or merely accelerated beams in a loop? IIRC, the Tevatron did 2x0.98 TeV collisions. Which would be, well ... a bigger bang :)

    But the flip side is that we've built the most powerful ray gun ever, now we just need to wait till the aliens attack.

  2. Re:When will the science begin by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's very disappointing to the science community (who at least understand the reasoning) but extremely disappointing to the rest of the world who can't fathom why something so expensive, with such a long development time...still has not provided any research.

    In other words, the scientific community actually doesn't "understand the reasoning" and is as ignorant as the general public.

  3. Re:Greenhouse Gases by DreamsAreOkToo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Later, Atomm was seen driving off in his SUV, looking smug that he had put those damned scientists in their place.

  4. Re:When will the science begin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Troll?

    It was only switched on again a week ago, and you want it to be spewing out Higgs' already?!!?

    These machines are *stunningly* complex, and always take years to reach their full potential. Google for the luminosity history of any major machine (LEP, Tevatron, etc.) to see how long they took to reach their design goals.

    Trust me, as a particle physicist (posting anonymously to preserve moderations), this week has been amazingly exciting, and everyone I know is stunned by how fast this machine is coming back on.

    "step it up a notch" -- you *must* be a troll.

  5. Re:Question about particle accelerators by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My understanding is that the faster you can move particles around, the harder you can smash them together. The harder you can smash them together, the easier it is to see the fundamental building blocks of those pieces. Imagine a car wreck with both cars doing 50mph. Now imagine the same wreck with each car doing 100mph. Which will break the cars into smaller pieces.

  6. Re:but where by geckipede · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Religions don't object to research into the unknown because faith gives confidence that the answers are either already known or theologically irrelevant.

    Religions object only to research into topics where they have already been proven wrong.

  7. Re:When will the science begin by CecilPL · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, all money ever does is employ people. That's what money is - a way to get other people to give you the product of their labors.

  8. Re:Translation into sensible units by mdwh2 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm amused at the idea that people who dislike things being "dumbed down" need someone to do this basic conversion for them :)

  9. Pathetic by quibbler · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The half-finished, mostly-paid-for SSC was slated at 20 TeV. You'll forgive my shrug at 1 TeV. This is an embarrassing footnote on the state of physics in modern civilization. Thanks Clinton.