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Europe's LHC To Run At Half-Energy Through 2011
quaith writes "ScienceInsider reports that Europe's Large Hadron Collider will run at half its maximum energy through 2011 and likely not at all in 2012. The previous plan was to ramp it up to 70% of maximum energy this year. Under the new plan, the LHC will run at 7 trillion electron-volts through 2011. The LHC would then shut down for a year so workers could replace all of its 10,000 interconnects with redesigned ones allowing the LHC to run at its full 14 TeV capacity in 2013. The change raises hopes at the LHC's lower-energy rival, the Tevatron Collider at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, of being extended through 2012 instead of being shut down next year. Fermilab researchers are hoping that their machine might collect enough data to beat the LHC to the discovery of the Higgs boson, a particle key to how physicists explain the origin of mass."
Does this news mean we now only have to be half afraid that they're going to create a black hole that will destroy the Earth?
You want $5.5 Billion? And the stated goal is to learn about particles that don't apply to anything Newtonian? Excuse me... how do you expect to make this money back? No way I'm investing in this. Consider me "out".
Announcer: "The first Slashdotter is out. Femilab needs to raise $5.5 billion from the other Slashdotters or they leave with nothing."
Full power baby! Just to make sure the tinfoil hats get sucked off if the world doesnt shift/end/gain-higher-consciousness
Whatever happened to that bird who dropped a baguette into the reactor and caused a zillion dollars of damage?
garethw
at (apparently) no one being fired for designing interconnects that only allow the LHC to run at 1/2 power? I may not be a scientist, but shouldn't a design cover the requirements? Then, to lose a year's work on top of that, and no one is getting their wrist slapped or even sued?
Impetuous! Homeric!
7 TeV is still more than 3 times Fermilab's total collision energy.
This more conservative ramp up is probably smart given the previous problems with equipment failure on the LHC. This will allow the systems to be tested thoroughly before going to max capacity.
I'm scared for all the half-lives at risk.
But what about all the counter-strikes and the portals?
7 TeV?
I'll tell that to my mom, who complains about the electricity bill for my computers :D
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
The Big Deal about the LHC isn't just the energy. It's also that it allows for a much higher collision rate than the Tevatron. Even if you only run the thing at Tevatron energies, it's possible that it can collect as much data in a week as the Tevatron could in years.
When the LHC guys down the hall show up tomorrow I'll have to ask them about the planned luminosity in the first year of running.
Uh, HEL-LO?!! Have you guys forgotten that the world is going to end in 2012?!! I think you might want to ramp it up all the way in 2011...just in case.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
,,,has far more energy than any woman can imagine!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
It will only create a gray hole then.
Lethargic Hoop Continental
Well, since you ask, potential future applications include tractor beams and antigravity. Theoretically.
So it'll run at half energy through 2011 and finally surpass Fermilab in 2012 when the world is scheduled to end in most mythologies?
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
in 2012 a mess up a Fermilab will let the cubs win!
Why does Black Mesa vs Aperture Science come to mind?
Maybe they can claim that it has to do something with global warming and the giant sound of sucking machines, and micro-black holes will start getting the money for them.
Om, nomnomnom...
And hyperdrive.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
So now we'll only know the mass of the Higgs to the 14th decimal place?
Oh no, how shall we survive?
Maury
Hard to get all worked up about this when the people running the program don't seem to be concerned about accomplishing anything significant. Sort of like spending untold billions on a supersonic aircraft, and after all the money is spent, flying it subsonic for a year or so, and then grounding it for another year to re-wire it. If the LHC was designed properly, run the friggin' thing. If not, fix the friggin' thing. Are they more concerned with lengthening their careers or in new science? Some people paid them a lot of money, and it wasn't for their job security and pensions.
Pardon me for my ignorance. What I don't understand is: do none of these problems show up when a short segment of the ring is built and operated at somewhat above its target power? I get the impression that the failures are in magnetic focusing components rather than the beam. Is that not correct?
Bruce Perens.
It certainly would have been possible to design them with a higher safety factor, but that would have increased the cost...Unfortunately for a large cutting edge project on a tight budget, you need to take some technical risks.
I seem to have heard this argument before.
The Apollo fire. The loss of the Challenger. Repairs to the Hubble.
Being that I live less than a mile from the place, I'd like to see the discovery be made here.
ApostleCorp.
New Economic Perspectives
Guess probably they figure out that they can no longer able to pay the electricity bills by running at max energy.
New Economic Perspectives
In an equally optimistic point of view, if Higgs boson is later shown to not exist, the Tevatron Collider can claim that it was able to not find it before the LHC!
Fellow Slashdotters, I hope is becoming abundantly clear by now that an age is ending; the great 20th century scientific projects are fading into history, and the 21st century will require us to dramatically lower our expectations for scientific civilization. What exactly is the payoff for the LHC anyway? In what way does it inspire society at large or contribute anything useful? It’s very strange to be living through the collapse of your own civilization, but with each passing day it becomes more and more clear to me that that’s what is happening. It looks to me like our resources are going to be funneled increasingly toward the military as we struggle to maintain what we already have, instead of pursuing inspirational projects that ordinary people can understand. A sad time to be alive for those of us who grew up with bigger dreams, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
Seems to me like the 2012 fuss played a bit of a role in this decision. Last I remember, they were meant to do this upgrade/maintenance during late 2010-2011, which meant it would have been functional in 2012.
But then again, they have more reasons to be over-cautious considering LHC's history. Only if the scientists operating it were a bit younger dare devils, ahem ahem.
Fermilab researchers are hoping that their machine might collect enough data to beat the LHC to the discovery of the Higgs boson, a particle key to how physicists explain the origin of mass
Why don't they work together? Seems awfully inefficient not to share data, which this appears to imply.
and only dropped half
your mom?
From New Scientist:
In everyday terms, this energy isn't so great – a flying mosquito has about 1 TeV of kinetic energy. What makes the LHC so special is that this energy is concentrated in a region a thousand billion times smaller than a speck of dust.
... I'll remember that next time I squat a mosquito!
---
LHC Feed @ Feed Distiller
.. but theres a limit and the amount of money the LHC is using up is taking the piss. Like it or not science is NOT and end in itself - its exists to benefit mankind. If there is little or no benefit for all these billions spent then IMO they would be better spent elsewhere. I'm sorry if that upsets some people but theres nothing special about particle physics than means it alone should get virtually a blank cheque for any scheme that is dreamt up for it. Some returns are needed from this potential white elephant and fast, and I don't just mean in some more chapters for postgraduate textbooks or something for professors to argue over in university debates. This money comes from taxpayers - us - it didn't grow on trees and I think it reasonable to expect taxpayers to get something back from it.
... for sciences that are of more immediate benefit. I have nothing against blue sky research in particle physics but in general its a fairly esoteric area of research that produces little of value that trickles back to mankind as a whole. I'm really not convinced this level of funding should be spent on it when other areas of science and technology struggle to get ANY sort of funding. I believe that research budgets should be based on the potential value of any results that may crop up and nice it may well be to find the Higgs Boson from an academic point of view, how exactly will it benefit mankind compared to curing cancer , AIDS, designing new fuel efficient engines for example?
If the people running these experiments want this sort of budget then raise it privately (good luck!) , but don't expect taxpayers to fork out for it to this level. A tens of million dollars/euros fine , but 5.5 BILLION? Pu-lease...
Nice to see that when something goes wrong, it becomes 'Europe's' LHC. I thought CERN was an international thing.
I used to work on the software handling the test results from hardware commissioning of the LHC, and an inevitable conclusion is that a lot of smart people did a lot of work to get the accelerator working as well as it does, given the restrictions and unknowns of the project.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/09/09/terrible-news-gordon-freeman-spotted-near-large-hadron-collider/
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
So are they going to ban the US one? Or is it safe if US scientists do it rather than those pinko europeans?
My guess is they won't be ready to run at 100% power until December 21, 2012.
The LHC is the Duke Nukem of high-energy physics.
If something does go "cataclismicly" wrong, they have justifiable deniability. "Our machine wasn't even on, don't blame us for the eruption in yellowstone! But I bet those bastards at Fermilab had their machine on!!!!".
While it's a shame that all the money put in so far hasn't quite led to the promised results, it doesn't matter. It's sciency, and it's worth it at any price.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
So, how much will it cost to make me a collider that goes to 14?