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Don't Cross the LHC Stream! (Maybe)

Posted by timothy on from the look-at-me-look-at-me dept.

jamie points out this piece from always-entertaining Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, who asks this week the simple question "What happens if you put your hand in the beam of the Large Hadron Collider?" The thrill of discovery to me doesn't sound worth the worst-case scenario.

6 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Already happened before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Did he get any super powers?

  2. Re:Already happened before by bcmm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    (though we don't know of anyone else who has been exposed to radiation in the form of a proton beam moving at about the speed of sound) [My emphasis]

    This was where I stopped reading and just read Anatoli Bugorski's Wikipedia article instead.

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
  3. Re:Already happened before by atomicthumbs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I wrote that Wikipedia article, I used the Wired article as a source. Other people added more. Decide for yourself.

    --
    http://pinopsida.com
  4. Re:Already happened before by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The protons in an accelerator move a hell of a lot closer to the speed of light than they do to the speed of sound (in any imaginable substance).

  5. Re:Already happened before by Anne+Honime · · Score: 2, Insightful

    [citation needed]

  6. Re:Already happened before by shentino · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, you won't.

    The protons in the back have to accelerate the protons in front of them when they bump, and the proton in front can only get closer to the speed of light.

    While it does so, it gets heavier and harder to move, which causes resistance to further speeding up.