LHC Powers Up To 4 TeV

An anonymous reader writes "Due to a decision made at Chamonix, the LHC will operate with a 4 TeV beam energy in 2012. This will allow them to collect as much data as possible (15 inverse femtobarns for ATLAS and CMS) before the whole accelerator complex gets shut down for about 20 months to prepare for even higher energies. 'By the time the LHC goes into its first long stop at the end of this year, we will either know that a Higgs particle exists or have ruled out the existence of a Standard Model Higgs,' said CERN's Research Director, Sergio Bertolucci. 'Either would be a major advance in our exploration of nature, bringing us closer to understanding how the fundamental particles acquire their mass, and marking the beginning of a new chapter in particle physics.'"

Comments

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a fairly large amount of energy, and the benefit to science seems substantial... neat!

I hope they find success within the 124 to 126 GeV range.

Re:Hmm

[justforgetme]

I surely hope so. I'm still waiting for that CERN engineered black hole!

Re:Hmm

[networkBoy]

Noooo, the Romulans are the ones that use an artificial singularity in their warp drives, we need a drunk madman with a nuclear delivery vehicle.

Re:Hmm

[justforgetme]

madman with a nuclear delivery vehicle.

Ok, Pizza hut or Domino's?

Re:Hmm

[mhajicek]

Subway. The delivery vehicle is a nuclear wessel.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a fairly large amount of energy

It's the amount of kinetic energy in a baseball traveling at about 7 inches per minute

Re:Hmm

[nitehawk214]

That is a fairly large amount of energy

It's the amount of kinetic energy in a baseball traveling at about 7 inches per minute

True, but that is 4 TeV per proton. With trillions of those things going around the ring at the same time, the energy gets to be rather significant.

Re:Hmm

[tibit]

Yeah, but good luck when you get hit by a billion of these ;)

Re:Hmm

[tibit]

In other words: the energy stored in the LHC beam is on the order of kinetic energy of a modern passenger jet somewhere above stall speed. If it'd dump in a small spot, you'd get a nice crater.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Energy is not really all that significant (unless you are in the beam line). 4TeV/proton * 3x10^3 bunches * 10^6 protons/bunch (a guess at number of protons per bunch) is something like 10^22 eV in the beam. The largest observed air shower from cosmic rays hitting the earth are well above that.

Re:Hmm

[Alioth]

It's a fsck of a lot of energy to have in a *single subatomic particle*. The Planck energy, for example, you could say on the same token "is only the amount of chemical energy in a tank of gas in a typical car". But all that energy carried by a single subatomic particle... it's rather more concentrated.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Analogy time:
A laptop battery has about the same amount of energy as a hand grenade. Of course, a battery delivers it over a period of 5 hours and a grenade in about 1/1000th of a second (barring certain Sony batteries, of course).

Re:Hmm

[LanMan04]

Yeah, PER PROTON. Want to read about the "beam dumps" LHC uses to dissipate the beam's energy when they need to remove it from the accelerator ring?

http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/components/beam-dump.htm

"Each beam dump absorber consists of a 7m long segmented carbon cylinder of 700mm diameter, contained in a steel cylinder, comprising the dump core (TDE). This is water cooled, and surrounded by about 750 tonnes of concrete and iron shielding. The dump is housed in a dedicated cavern (UD) at the end of the transfer tunnels (TD). "

"The nominal LHC beam contains an unprecedented stored energy of 350 MJ, contained in 2808 bunches with a beam sigma of the order of 0.3 mm."

Re:Hmm

[budgenator]

Holy fuck, you could almost feel that impact from one proton.

Re:Hmm

[jeffy210]

So that look really cool and all, but I'd like to know, what if they diverted the beam and did not have the the "beam dump" on the end? What would the proton's do?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

When you see engineers surrounding something that is not supposed to be able to go BOOM with 750ton of concrete and iron shielding, it is a safe bet that radiation is the main concern. 350MJ hurts (it will punch you right through in a beam that tight), but not that much to require such shielding.

The TDE probably is engineered to not suffer undue thermal stress, and to cool very rapidly so that it can take another dump ASAP.

Someone with better knowledge of the physics involved please explain what kind of radiation we can expect from a proton beam hitting the wrong kind of matter.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Here it is: (http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000570)

----8----
The art of dumping
Say a magnet quenches, too much beam goes off course, or—the most likely yet least dramatic scenario—the beams have lost too many protons during normal collisions and scientists need to load a fresh set. What happens to the old beams? Even at the ends of their usual 10-hour life spans they still hold 200 megajoules of energy that can't be sent just anywhere.

“This beam is not a danger by itself,” Schmidt says, “but the fact that it can deposit its energy in a tenth of a thousandth of a second makes it dangerous to the machine.”

When the time comes, the beams are extracted, or dumped, into two huge cylindrical blocks. Eight meters long, one meter in diameter, and made of graphite composites encased in concrete, they are the only thing that can withstand the full power of the beam. But first the beam has to be diffused, because in its compressed form it would drill a hole tens of meters long in any material.

So as the beams pass out of the LHC, they spread out and hit the blocks in a shape that resembles a cursive “e.” The dump takes just eighty-millionths of a second, dilutes the energy of the beam by a factor of 100,000 and heats the center of the lines that make up the “e” to almost 700C.
----8----

And here is a throughout description of the beam dump interaction (i.e. what happens to whatever the LHC hits with a 7TeV beam):
http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/BeamdumpInteraction.pdf

It will start a nice fire, indeed. Heh. But all that concrete is there because protons scattering when they hit something are really annoying to electronics, and not safe to someone that takes too many of them (by standing just to the side of the beam target).

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Per Wikipedia
"The megajoule (MJ) is equal to one million (106) joules, or approximately the kinetic energy of a one-tonne vehicle moving at 160 km/h (100 mph).

Because 1 watt times one second equals one joule, 1 kilowatt-hour is 1000 watts times 3600 seconds, or 3.6 megajoules."

Basically you're looking at 100kwh worth of energy hitting something; that's enough energy to power 50 homes for an hour. In another perspective, it's a 360 ton (720,000 pound) object moving at 160kph.

Probably the best way of looking at it; 360MJ can instantly flash boil about 500 or so gallons of water. Which, since your body is 80% water, and you weigh maybe 200 pounds? Would be enough to instantaniously flash boil YOU!

Re:Hmm

[subreality]

To give a sense of scale:

1MJ is roughly the energy in a car at highway speed.

10MJ is roughly the energy in a 55kg round fired from a tank at 600 m/s

350MJ is roughly the energy in a 767 as it lands, or a small jet at cruise speed.

350MJ is roughly the energy in 3200 pounds of TNT.

That's pretty scary. I'd never considered how careful you'd have to be just shutting the thing off.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between momentum and energy. Say you have a baseball and a relativistic proton with the same kinetic energy:

E = 0.5 * m_b * v_b^2 = gamma * m_p * c^2

Symbols:
E = energy
m_b = mass of baseball
v_b = velocity of baseball
gamma = Lorentz factor of proton
m_p = mass of proton
c = speed of light

(Note that you can't use the normal kinetic energy formula for a proton moving this fast.)

The momenta of the baseball and the proton (p_b and p_p respectively) are:

p_b = m_b * v_b
p_p = gamma * m_p * c

With a bit of working, we can solve for the momentum of the proton as a fraction of the momentum of the baseball:

p_p / p_b = 2 * v_b / c

For a reasonable baseball velocity (say, 30 m/s), that's 0.00002%. So the proton has much less momentum than the baseball, even if its energy is the same.

Re:Hmm

[bill_mcgonigle]

Probably the best way of looking at it; 360MJ can instantly flash boil about 500 or so gallons of water. Which, since your body is 80% water, and you weigh maybe 200 pounds? Would be enough to instantaniously flash boil YOU!

Oh, so it's a Disruptor set on 'max'. You could've just said that.

Re:Hmm

[einhverfr]

I am still pretty sure that large hadrons are the stuff of science fiction.

Re:Hmm

[psmears]

True, but that is 4 TeV per proton. With trillions of those things going around the ring at the same time, the energy gets to be rather significant.

One trillion times 4 TeV gives... about enough energy to boil four pints of water (depending on starting temperature, US vs UK pints, etc...). Anyone for tea? :)

Hyperbole

[Sarten-X]

No, we will not "know that a Higgs particle exists". We may have an incredibly strong indication that it does, enough to strongly believe it exists, but we will not know with 100% certainty that the particle exists, the experiments were infallible, and the data was accurate.

Re:Hyperbole

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that we don't "Know" anything of note for sufficiently rigorous definitions of the word(arguably, capital 'K' "knowledge" seems to alternate between being a philosopher's dream and being a straw man...), 'know' makes pretty decent shorthand for the somewhat unwieldy long-form account of the precise flavor of the information provided by science.

Re:Hyperbole

[DigiShaman]

1. There are thing that are known.
2. There are things were we knew we don't know.
3. There are things that we know that we didn't knew we know.
and
4. There are things that we simply aren't aware of.

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes we will you pedant fuck.

Re:Hyperbole

[Chris Burke]

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.
  -Stephen Jay Gould

Re:Hyperbole

[dkleinsc]

This sounds like a job for Donald Rumsfeld:

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don't know.

Re:Hyperbole

[DigiShaman]

The man was a poet. Cheers.

Re:Hyperbole

[Gideon Wells]

Get strict enough, and I don't even Know if I exist. I might be a very stubborn delusion of someone's day dream.

Apparently, if that is so, it must be a very boring day dream.

Re:Hyperbole

[osu-neko]

No, we will not "know that a Higgs particle exists". We may have an incredibly strong indication that it does, enough to strongly believe it exists, but we will not know with 100% certainty that the particle exists, the experiments were infallible, and the data was accurate.

Given that I cannot know with 100% certainty that the keyboard I'm typing on right now exists, I'm willing to allow that there's a certain vernacular usage of the word "know" that does not imply the absolutely impossible: 100% certainty. But thanks for stating the bleeding obvious...

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

There are things we think we know that we don't. Like we used to know that the sun goes around the earth, planets have circular orbits, leeches cure diseases, there's an ether, time is constant, continents are fixed, humans have 24 chromosomes...

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't he on an episode of The Boondocks?

Re:Hyperbole

[Sarten-X]

My pet peeve with the use of "know" in relation to science stems from the public confusion as to what science can and cannot absolutely know.

Thanks to overstating the abilities of science to prove something, juries now expect DNA evidence in trivial cases, the discussion of competing theories is seen as indecision, and a scientist who accurately states a probability is often portrayed as inconclusive. By substituting "have compelling evidence" in place of "know", scientists could make accurate statements and educate the public at the same time.

Re:Hyperbole

[Medievalist]

I liked his poetry better than his ethics... the aspartame intervention at the FDA is like a textbook example of regulatory capture and abuse of power.

You're right, though, he was a poet...

You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.

It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't--
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

--Donald Rumsfeld, 2003-02-28 DoD briefing

Re:Hyperbole

[Luckyo]

If you want to go down that lane, you have to start at the real problem, we cannot be sure that "we" exist the way we think we exist. As all observations made by us are based on assumption that "we" exist, we can never be certain of anything based on what we observe.

As a result we can never be certain of anything. At all. However we can be "reasonably certain", and this is one such case.

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

The possibility that the sun might get blocked by clouds of dust the next day was very unlikely to the dinosaurs.

Re:Hyperbole

[ThePeices]

Why do we need to know anything to an absolute 100% certainty?
The difference between 99.99999999999% and 100% certainty is not relevant when it comes to believing that something exists.

Re:Hyperbole

[DMUTPeregrine]

True. And your point is? The sun still rose, it was just blocked. The blocking could have been predicted with more accurate data (big rock incoming) but in no way contradicts the theory "the earth rotates about its axis every 24 hours, causing the sun to be in and out of the shadow of the earth every 12 hours."

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry for the off-topic, but if you like aspartame, you're going to -love- Neotame, from our friends at a spin-off from Monsanto, approved years ago, but now being added to more and more foods. What's better yet is that it's -more- toxic than aspartame, and the FDA does NOT require it's presence to be noted on the label (it's so sweet, that it falls under the 1% rule). **One rumor to note is that the statements being made that it can be added to "organically certified" foods is false. Yes, it's pushed by Monsanto's spin-off, "J.W. Childs Equity Partners", but interesting to note that a senior adviser to the FDA is an ex-Monsanto lawyer, Michael Taylor...I'm sure there is little connection between Monsanto, Taylor, and J.W. Childs. More good news is that rumors suggest that Taylor may actually be in line to actually run the agency someday. All being said, they can put this crap in our food and there's no way to tell.

Re:Hyperbole

[ILongForDarkness]

To be fair we don't know that with one hundred percent certainty that you exist. You might be a bot that passes the Turing test.

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is you didn't actually make a point. Competing theories do indicate indecision. Statements of probability are inconclusive. DNA evidence is a good lower bound to have, because all other forms of evidence are inferior.

Sounds like maybe you're the one who needs a lil "public education."

Like most of the self-appointed "intellectual" types around here.

Re:Hyperbole

[schlachter]

for most people, the difference between 0% and 99% certainty is not relevant when it comes to believing that something exists.

Re:Hyperbole

[Chris Burke]

Thanks to overstating the abilities of science to prove something, juries now expect DNA evidence in trivial cases,

That's CSI's fault, not scientists'.

By substituting "have compelling evidence" in place of "know", scientists could make accurate statements and educate the public at the same time.

But there's a quantitative difference between those things. We have compelling evidence for the existence of Dark Matter, or the KT impactor. We know neutrinos, W&Z bosons, and quarks exist with a degree of certainty that makes it bizarre to say anything but "know". The evidence is beyond compelling.

Seems to me like using the same terms to refer to a broad range of evidence is more likely to cause confusion. It could falsely imply that a rock-solid scientific fact has the same degree of surety as something for which merely compelling evidence exists.

Maybe the right tack to take on educating the public would be to explain that while knowledge is never 100% certain, science has exceedingly high standards for saying they "know" something -- and explain what that standard is!

By the end of this year, barring unforeseen circumstances, CERN will know whether the Standard Model Higgs exists or not.

Re:Hyperbole

[woodycat]

To know is impossible. Everything is claim and counter claim. We establish an idea for a period of time only. Everything is up for review therefore to know is simply a transient claim.

Re:Hyperbole

[LingNoi]

Hate to be that 1% because you can't know anything given that definition which makes the word entirely useless.

Re:Hyperbole

[LingNoi]

know/n/
Verb:
Be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information.
Have knowledge or information concerning.

So, yes we would "know". It's your mis-understanding of the definition of the word. Not everyone else's that's the problem here.

Re:Hyperbole

[mug funky]

we can say that we KNOW massive objects behave in a manner predicted by Newton's laws of motion to a degree of accuracy.

we can say that we KNOW in certain situations (extreme gravity, or whatnot) that these objects diverge from the behavior predicted by Newtonian physics and we have to whip out the Einsteinian maths to get a similar result, but one that agrees with reality to a far greater degree of accuracy.

that doesn't mean we KNOW these laws are correct, just that they agree with observation up to the limit of the accuracy of our measurements.

in most cases that is good enough.

rest assured, that when we see a headline "Einstein was wrong!!1!", that the world keeps turning.

Re:Hyperbole

[Thing 1]

juries now expect DNA evidence in trivial cases

Hey, if the TV can help people understand the power that they have as juries to nullify the law, then I'm all for it. Of course, that's not what you're saying, but one can dream...

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. That probably explains why experimental physics is stuck and have never considered that observable phenomina is a partial characteristic of higher dimensional forces, a resultant example being quantum discontinuity which has been argued out of theoretical physics.
However the dark energy/matter issues will probably change the paradigm.

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is, we know that theory with the same certainty we knew that the sun revolved around the earth for millenia. We knew with certainty how gravity worked, but we can't use that theory for accurate GPS readings. All models are flawed, by definition.

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

The certainty is measured within the parameters of a model. If the model is flawed, the certainty measure is too. For example, we were certain that continents didn't drift and that humans had 24 chromosomes, not too long ago.

Re:Hyperbole

[Anonymous Coward]

We can say that we KNOW neutrinos can't travel faster than light...oh wait...

Re:Hyperbole

[einhverfr]

While I don't disagree with Gould regarding the issue of physics in classrooms, I really think it would be better to keep the epistemology clear and well-taught and stop talking about scientific facts outside of the fact that "so-and-so observed such-and-such and this is the data that was recorded."

The fact is that we consistently observe apples falling. We model this using various gravitational models (relativistic, Newtonian, etc). Only an idiot might say that if he drops an apple it won't fall as the default position. But this does not necessarily validate existing gravitational models.

Heisenberg repeatedly argued that data does not imply theory (see his book "Physics and Philosophy"). There is always room for competing models in science. No model can remotely be labeled as "fact."

Re:Hyperbole

[Maritz]

Good to be fair - don't think I do might be a bot that passes the Turing test! Do you like one hundred percent?

Funding

[SJHillman]

They could easily double their funding if they told the US military there may be a way to weaponize the Higgs. Or at least they could call it a black hole gun. It might be hard to find a ship large enough to mobilize it.

Re:Funding

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given that the Higgs is theorized to be vital to matter having mass, it is probably the case that it is impossible to weaponize without the Higgs(if it exists). Massless ammunition, after all, is almost as effective as massless armor...

Re:Funding

[Joce640k]

Neutrino cannons FTW!

Re:Funding

[yodleboy]

It's the GOD particle! We now know what was coming out of the lost ark in Raiders, a giant flood of Higgs.

Re:Funding

[Chris Burke]

Lasers use massless ammunition.

Of course the massless laser generator might be a little hard to engineer.

Re:Funding

[BlackSnake112]

Those were just the pissed off souls of those killed by the ark. Which in turn are used to kill more people. Keep on using the ark to have a more powerful ark. Well as long as people watch it. Having a powerful weapon rendered useless by simple closing your eyes is funny. The same could be said for Medusa. Does watching the ark via a mirror not kill you? Who ever has the ark please test that out.

Re:Funding

[vux984]

Having a powerful weapon rendered useless by simple closing your eyes is funny.

The weapon wasn't rendered useless. The weapon was simply selectively killing those that chose to look upon the opened ark, and sparing those chose not to.

It was no more "rendered useless" than an infantry unit deciding not to shoot civilians who lay on the ground unarmed. Its not that lying on the ground unarmed renders M16s unable to kill them, but rather that the intelligence behind the M16s is only interested in killing combatants.

That anyone could think that the idea in Raider's was that the arks power was somehow defeated by closing one's eyes... blows me away. Wow. Just Wow.

Re:Funding

[nitehawk214]

Those were just the pissed off souls of those killed by the ark. Which in turn are used to kill more people. Keep on using the ark to have a more powerful ark. Well as long as people watch it. Having a powerful weapon rendered useless by simple closing your eyes is funny. The same could be said for Medusa. Does watching the ark via a mirror not kill you? Who ever has the ark please test that out.

But to answer the GPP's question we must ask this... do souls have mass? If so they must have Higgs bosons.

And if the ark kills by unleashing the souls of those that were killed by it, how did the first person get killed by it? Perhaps they dropped it on top of some poor sucker/s to seed the weapon?

Re:Funding

[Luckyo]

Mass is just one of the forms of energy. Conventional ammunition uses kinetic energy. Lasers use massless artificially excited photons as ammunition, and are very effective at "burning through" armour that has mass.

At the same time if it were possible to devise fully massless highly energetic energy flux, it would likely make a far better armour then anything with mass ever could achieve (i.e. "shields).

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to slashdot. Critical thinking skills need not apply to the majority anymore.

Re:Funding

[HybridST]

"Lasers use massless ammunition."

would you like to know more...


The Susskind lectures on youtube have gotten me through the relevant mathematics. I'd link it but typing out html links is a real bitch on the ipod!

Re:Funding

[Chris Burke]

REST-massless ammunition. Which is what the Higgs theoretically grants to particles, and is also the only kind of mass which physicists talk about these days since 'relativistic mass' has fallen out of favor.

Happy now?

Re:Funding

[schlachter]

Soon there will be a new type of legal defense...the god-particle told me to do it, your honor.

Re:Funding

[AmiMoJo]

I'm amazed the rest of the world hasn't figured out the true purpose of the Large Hadron Cannon... er, I mean Collider, yet. Everyone else is going to look pretty stupid with their 1960s lasers when our particles travel FASTER than the speed of light!

Re:Funding

[Agripa]

I have read that book. It did not turn out well for the LHC or the Axis.

Re:Funding

[VortexCortex]

Welcome to slashdot. Critical thinking skills need not apply to the majority anymore.

Welcome to Slashdot where critical thinking skills are applied to fictitious representations of God's power as a literal 'Deus ex Machina",
and The irony level is over 9000...

Re:Funding

[Thing 1]

Perhaps they dropped it on top of some poor sucker/s to seed the weapon?

All pumps need priming...

Re:Funding

[Whiteox]

do souls have mass?

Currently there is research on that very question.
Also, does data have mass? Also being measured!

Re:Funding

[bill_mcgonigle]

Ark - meets design requirements.

Signed-off-by: God

Re:Funding

[nitehawk214]

do souls have mass?

Currently there is research on that very question.
Also, does data have mass? Also being measured!

Well, Catholics have mass, so...

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

Fallen out of favour?

"When particles are moving, relativistic mass provides a very economical description that absorbs the particles' motion naturally." -- Baez.

However, that's special relativity, which is what *particle* physicists deal with (mainly, pace some effective QFT and QG stuff). In SR, a rest mass is reasonably well defined (it's the normal of the energy-momentum 4-vector, and is better called "invariant mass" than "rest mass" in that context).

A box of photons also has mass in the sense of causing spacetime curvature, which brings us to rest mass in general relativity. Mass in general relativity is only properly invariant as the spacetime interval between test mass and observer goes to zero, although in the Newtonian limit in a quasistatic and nearly flat patch of spacetime, and the components of the momentum vector are all zero, then one can approximately separate the gravitiational self-binding energy from the remainder of the energy of the system, and thus arrive at a close approximation of the invariant mass in SR. This is in large part due to the deliberately built-in compatibility with special relativity in early thinking about GR.

Re:Funding

[Chris Burke]

"When particles are moving, relativistic mass provides a very economical description that absorbs the particles' motion naturally." -- Baez.

Okay, so after googling John Baer, it turns out that there's different views on the subject. And the last physicist to 'correct' me for using the term was a jerk for only pointing to resources that said relativistic mass shouldn't be used any more.

Personally whether physicists want to use it or not (and I liked Baer's explanation for why they should), at the very least it's highly useful for relating to newbies since relativistic mass is the value that relates most closely to classical mass in that it is what affects inertia and gravity.

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

It's cool that you looked that up. As with many things he puts online at his site (and elsewhere), it's reasonable. He doesn't argue that they *should* use relativistic mass -- rather that they should not preclude its use for purely technical or aesthetic reasons. He covers several of each, and admits that the aesthetic and technical preferences in favour of explicitly considering only invariant mass (the rest mass) in various families of equations have merit *in some situations*. Likewise, explicitly considering the Lorentz factor adjusted invariant mass (the relativistic mass) in most of those same families of equations also has some aesthetic and technical merit *in some situations*.

The trick is to make it clear which you mean when using "m", just like laying out the sign convention at the start of a technical piece dealing with the stress-energy tensor.

It's Baez with a z, though. :-)

Uncertainty

[busyqth]

What they will discover is that the Higgs both does exist, and doesn't exist, at the same time.

Re:Uncertainty

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You must be thinking of the various bloodstained and headless subatomic particles that Schrödinger's damn cat keeps leaving just outside the lab door, after batting them around for its amusement...

Re:Uncertainty

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be thinking of the various bloodstained and headless subatomic particles that Schrödinger's damn cat keeps leaving just outside the lab door, after batting them around for its amusement...

I think you are referring the the subatomic particles he may be leaving outside...

Re:Uncertainty

[socceroos]

No, the cat did leave them out there. The odd thing is that when I opened the door, they were gone.

BOOYA

[Anonymous Coward]

I always knew the fucking jews did LHC

Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time the LHC goes into its first long stop at the end of this year, we will either know that a Higgs particle exists or have ruled out the existence of a Standard Model Higgs

If the scientists have any sense of humour at all, they will schedule the final test at maximum power for December 21st, 2012.

Re:Good timing

[Anrego]

Yes! Please yes!

I actually choked on my coffee a bit when I read this!

Re:Good timing

[Joce640k]

That would be the best joke ever...

Well, not quite as funny as slipping a spring-loaded Mars Bar onto the Mars Rover just before launch ... but still pretty funny. Would love to see them do it.

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Using the Google guidelines for "funny": Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

That's actually what will cause the earth to stop spinning, when they cannot shut it down :)

Re:Good timing

[thygate]

It will be SHUTDOWN at the end of the year for 20 months to PREPARE for higher power tests. So it will be 2014 before they can run these.

Re:Good timing

[thygate]

additional: the shutdown is to prepare for 14 TeV collisions (7 TeV per beam)

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing funnier would be if aliens deemed discovery of the Higgs a requisite for continued life on Earth by December 21st, 2012 and the test was delayed until December 22. I guess they'd get their intergalactic off ramp after all.

Stupid humans....

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

I second that.

Do it.

No balls, scientists. You're already a misunderstood minority, might as well at least have fun with it. And think, if the world really does end, you more than likely won't be around to hear anyone bitching about it. :) It's win-win!

Re:Good timing

[martin-boundary]

Wait, shouldn't that be...

Using the Google guidelines for "funny": Loool!

About 19,700,000 o's (0.17 seconds)

Re:Good timing

[Anonymous Coward]

PLASMA THEORY...
'Nuff said.

Re:Good timing

[SomnusAlpha]

Unfortunately due to the requirements of power from the French grid, the plan is to always switch off the LHC over the holiday period. What is interesting though is that we will have a Heavy Ion run (Pb on Pb) just before it is switched off - which will probably be at higher energies than last year .....

And in other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

The LHC opens a crack into another universe and we cease to exist.

Oops.

But hey, Turns out the mayans were only off by a couple of months. That's pretty impressive.

divide by 0

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they dont divide by 0 :)

Re:divide by 0

[Anonymous Coward]

They're physicists, not creationists; so they obey the laws of thermodynamics and mathematics.

He didn't say that

[Kupfernigk]

Nowhere in the source does it say "know with 100% certainty". Talk about a straw man argument. The difference between "know" and "believe" is that belief exists independent of evidence, whereas knowledge is somehow grounded in experience. We "know" how to ride a bicycle, but that didn't stop me falling off one a few weeks ago. Although clearly I do not know how to ride a bicycle with 100% reliability in all conditions, only the ultimate picker of nits would argue that occasional falling off means I do not know how to ride a bicycle.

And in any case it wouldn't be hyperbole. If I've told you once, I've told you a million times, hyperbole is wild exaggeration for rhetorical effect. Claiming that something is 100% reliable rather than, say, 99.5%, is not hyperbole. It is just slight overstatement.

Now please remove yourself from my philosophical lawn.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

So when someone cuts me off on the freeway, and almost causes an accident, you are saying that it is wrong for me to exclaim that the other driver doesn't know how to drive? Hm, Learn something new every day.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between "know" and "believe" is that belief exists independent of evidence, whereas knowledge is somehow grounded in experience.

Knowledge is justified true belief. ~Socrates

Most people's beliefs - be they religious, political, ideological or just mere opinion - are somehow grounded in some sort of experience. It's not like most believers in XYZ religion are want to take a Kiergegaardean leap of faith. They usually will give you reasons why they think their beliefs are true. It's not like YEC think there is no evidence the world is only 6-10k years old. In fact, the will try and argue that the science really supports them. Same with Global Warming denialists, ancient alien buffs, and alternative medicine promoters.

It would be strange indeed if a person's beliefs had nothing to do with experience. They may be wrong about what their experience constitutes, but it is a ground for believing nonetheless.

Re:He didn't say that

[elfprince13]

I don't know why this poster has been modded into oblivion, but I guess it's a good thing he posted AC afterall.

Re:He didn't say that

[blue trane]

Did Aristarchos of Samos know in the 3rd century BC that the earth revolved around the sun? If not, did the Greeks who argued against him by saying: "If the Earth revolves around the Sun, we should see parallax motion of the stars. We don't see parallax motion of the stars. Therefore, the Earth does not revolve around the Sun." know better than him? (The reason they couldn't see parallax motion was that their instruments weren't sensitive enough...)

Re:He didn't say that

[petsounds]

only the ultimate picker of nits would argue that occasional falling off means I do not know how to ride a bicycle.

Or your average software engineer.

Re:He didn't say that

[Phrogman]

Falling off is a feature, not a bug :)

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's a user error. RTFM.

Re:He didn't say that

[steelfood]

Some belief is just groupthink. One person makes an assetion. Some people pick it up and repeat the same assertion. More people pick it up. They repeat the assertion, affirming it of the first group. It quickly becomes a vicious cycle of affirmation. Before long, the assertion becomes true irrespective of reality, and no amount of proof or evidence otherwise can dissuade the believers. A great example of this is Bush's (or really, Karl Rove's) "swift boat" campaign ads against Kerry. Another is Obama's birth location, and "death panels."

Other belief stems from a strong childhood belief that plays a significant role in their lives. People hold onto these beliefs in defiance of all logic and evidence otherwise because the nostalgia grants them feelings of security. Religion is the biggest one of them. The more insecure people feel, the more energy goes into denying reality, the stronger their conviction.

What you're talking about specifically is superstition, or the beginnings of superstition. Yes, religion and "belief" comes out of superstition. But superstition comes first, and it is distinct from religion in that it is weaker. It comes out of a want to control what is inherently chaotic and uncontrollable. It's perfectly healthy and natural, though there's an important need to recognize when a superstition becomes unfounded.

The hierarchy goes from the last thing I listed to the first. Those who are superstitious are susceptible to religious influences. Those who are religious are susceptible to groupthink. With each successive level, the conviction is stronger, logic is more marginalized, reality is more tuned in the mind ot the belief, cognative dissonance becomes more prominent, until the point of self-destruction.

The reason there are so many political examples of the first type of belief is because it is easy to start, especially among people who are already zealously religious. It's easy to manipulate these people, and so politicians and political strategiests constantly use it as a weapon against the competition.

Finally, there are a group of believers who recognize what belief is. They realize (or are taught) that belief is personal. It is a choice that each individual makes. They are secure in their beliefs, requiring no external validation. These people tend to not be superstitious at all. They can believe in a diety, that there is no such thing as a diety, or be unsure. But you'll never know unless you ask, because they'll otherwise never have a want or need to tell you. These are the rational individuals, who when they die (because all religion satisfies the need to know the ultimate unknown), will accept whatever comes afterwards, if anything, and hence does not need to posit, assert, or speculate on it beforehand.

There are many of these people, but because they remain silent and are content to do so, only the insure seeking their own self-affirmation through others get heard. In a society where the volume and not character determines quality, they will never be represented properly. Their wants and desires will never be fulfilled. They will ever be marginalized, ever be relegated to being unwilling spectators to an unwelcomed circus.

Re:He didn't say that

[Anonymous Coward]

Claiming that something is 100% reliable rather than, say, 99.5%, is not hyperbole. It is just slight overstatement.

It's much more than slight overstatement. Saying something is 99.5% reliable means there is a chance it is unreliable. Saying something is 100% reliable means there is no chance that it is unreliable. This is a huge difference. While hyperbole may not be the right word, "wildly exaggerating" certainly would fit.

Re:He didn't say that

[porksoda]

"When a mind does not *know* itself, it is flawed. When a mind is flawed, the man is flawed. When a man is flawed, that which he touches is flawed. It is said that what a flawed man sees, his hands make broken."
- Dak'kon, from Planescape:Torment

Re:He didn't say that

[einhverfr]

Well, I would strike the word "true" from the Socrates statement.

The problem with this is that all knowledge should be seen as tentative because we cannot separate the model we build from our understanding of what we are modelling. Every scientific theory is a model, and every scientific theory will probably be superceded by a different one at some point. So what we mean by truth in science is about predictive value, not about ontological value.

So for example, Newtonian gravity is true. It has predictive value. A very different understanding of gravity found in relativity theory is slightly more true, in the sense that it has slightly better predictive value. Sometime we will probably have an even more true, and yet similarly ontologically incompatible understanding of gravity.

As Heisenberg put it, E=mc^2 is nothing more than a quantified version of Heraclitus's statement that fire is the prima materia.....

It's almost certainly there

[grimJester]

The bump around 125 is fairly close to a discovery already. The first time they release fully analyzed data at all this year will be enough for a five sigma discovery. After seeing what kind of lag they have between data gathering and release, I'd say the discovery will be announced in August.

Re:It's almost certainly there

[msheekhah]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

Re:It's almost certainly there

[DMUTPeregrine]

Except that they have 2 bumps from 2 detectors, and they don't line up well enough.

rock you in the head

[Anonymous Coward]

CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind: they're looking for whatever new particles they can find.

Yawn...

[StikyPad]

Wake me up when they get to 11.

THC

[Anonymous Coward]

I first read that as THC powers up, I thought they'd found some new super marijuana.

Re:THC

[Chris Burke]

They did, and it's rated at 4 Tev (Totally excellent Vibes).

Re:THC

[game kid]

Don't bogart the bosons, maaan!

Best troll evah!

[Joce640k]

I couldn't resist. I just e-mailed them a suggestion to do it on December 21st. I bet they won't but it's worth a try.

Even if they only announce that date and play along with it for a month or so ... it would still be the Best Troll Evah!

PS: What's Brian Cox's email? I bet he'd do it.

Re:Best troll evah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Psst... Try brian.cox@manchester.ac.uk ...

We. Are going. To die. :(

[Anonymous Coward]

We. Are going. To die. :(

Standard Slashdot Response

[eternaldoctorwho]

"Yawn. Wake me when it gets to 10 Tev." *sigh*

Re:Standard Slashdot Response

[Spectre]

"Yawn. Wake me when it gets to 10 Tev."

*sigh*

My collider goes to 11.

Not again

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone hold on tight. This is the event that sets off the time loop we've been stuck in for a very "long" time.

Re:Not again

[PPH]

As long as we don't have to put up with Bill Murray and that damned groundhog, I'm OK with it.

Waiting Game

[TheCarp]

I was thinking about an argument I had with someone a long time ago, what it was about wasn't important but.... answering which version of events was true was only going to be settled by the word of a third party....who was still sleeping. I remember coming to the realisation that only one thing would solve our dispute... I remember waiting for that person to show up with the truth....

I wonder now how maddening it must be. Every time I read of these things I think of that.... weeks here, a month there, predictions already made, arguments carefully laid down. All that is left to do is fire up the collide. How many of those firings are already set.... just waiting on the technicians and engineers to be ready.

Sure, they can keep running over simulations and equations, trying to refine predictions, look for some obvious problem, but, in the end.... its just a matter of waiting for it to wake up, and show up with some new truth.

Re:Waiting Game

[Whiteox]

Yes! If it were me, I'd just walk up to the control panel, turn the dial to 4 and hit the ON button.

It's religion...

[Anonymous Coward]

And if the ark kills by unleashing the souls of those that were killed by it, how did the first person get killed by it? Perhaps they dropped it on top of some poor sucker/s to seed the weapon?

Easy. The wizard did it.

One bit more...

[LeDopore]

From TFS:

'Either would be a major advance in our exploration of nature, bringing us closer to understanding how the fundamental particles acquire their mass, and marking the beginning of a new chapter in particle physics.'

I can't help but point out that knowing if the Higgs exists will increase our information about the universe by a maximum of 1 bit. (Knowing its mass and decay modes probably would give us more like a dozen or two bits of information - more than 1 bit but still not much.)

Particle physics is great, and doing it carefully *does* increase our knowledge of the world, but only by the tiniest of margins. Imagine if all those thousands of super-bright minds had been focused on some other task for decades? What kind of magic tech would we have by now? The ratio of opportunity cost to benefit is sky high.

Re:One bit more...

[fzammett]

That's only true if you're of the belief that knowledge in and of itself isn't a commodity worth having for a given price. That's certainly not an interpretation of things I subscribe to.

You're point isn't invalid by any stretch, it is in fact the core of a very good argument. But it's one I'd argue against strenuously. In fact, I'd argue that every step towards a total understanding of our universe, no matter how small the step, is worth virtually any cost placed on it. The toys we may sacrifice as a result of that pursuit is more than a worthy tradeoff to make. The knowing in the end is its own best reward.

I'd also hold that over the long-term all those 1 bit advancements in knowledge pay us back tenfold or better. Think of the relatively minor advances in knowledge that pure science and experimentation had to provide before we could invent the transistor, and then think about all the benefits that invention has led to. I think it'd be nearly impossible to argue that ratio isn't magnificent. Sure, I can't say knowing whether the Higgs is real or not would have a similar outcome, but nor can anyone say for sure it won't. Therefore, the only option is to proceed down the path of discovery and pay the opportunity cost along the way in the hope that a similar situation to the transistor might arise.

I make the same type of argument for human exploration of space. As easy as it is to argue against such ventures on the basis of cost and risk and other things, the benefit we may derive from it, not only on incidental technological invention but in pure knowledge that we can only guess at, is worth it no matter what the cost. At least, it is to me.

Re:One bit more...

[LeDopore]

In fact, I'd argue that every step towards a total understanding of our universe, no matter how small the step, is worth virtually any cost placed on it.

I agree with you 100%, but my application of this sentiment differs from yours. It's a shame when only a few dozen bits are discovered when the same effort could have lead to enormous gains in other fields. That's why I encourage scientists away from particle physics and into other areas like biophysics, nonlinear physics, fluid dynamics, bioengineering, neuroscience, machine intelligence and applied mathematics.

The only way the LHC makes sense is if you believe one bit of particle physics knowledge is worth millions of times more than one bit of neuroscience knowledge, since there might be a million to one ratio of understanding per effort spent. By your signature, it looks like you might still think that particle physics knowledge really is a million times more important than knowledge in any other field. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Re:One bit more...

[ShooterNeo]

I think you're completely wrong.

Here's my objection : when you're talking about spending resources towards advancing technology and knowledge, WHERE you choose to spend the money is of immense importance. Putting 20 billion towards something that only advances human knowledge a tiny bit (like exploration of subatomic particles that are not separable without exotic energy states) is a bad idea if there are other things the 20 billion could be spent on to get more useful results.

For example, instead of researching the basic nature of matter, we could be trying to build self-replicating nanoscale machinery that we DO know work from living examples. With such machinery, we could eventually gain real mastery of our planet and our bodies.

Or, instead of wasting money on wars to kill a bunch of brown skinned people so that they don't kill a small number of us (we hope), we could spend the same money on medical advances to prevent aging and death. (or cryogenically freezing the recently dead so that even clinical death doesn't end all hope)

Instead of exploring space, all that money spent on telescopes and probes could go towards laser launch or elevators or some other method to get off the rock for a price that can actually be afforded.

And so on. R&D funding ought to be at several times what we are spending now as a society, but it should also be allocated towards more useful goals.

Re:One bit more...

[Chris Burke]

I agree with you 100%, but my application of this sentiment differs from yours. It's a shame when only a few dozen bits are discovered when the same effort could have lead to enormous gains in other fields.

The only way the LHC makes sense is if you believe one bit of particle physics knowledge is worth millions of times more than one bit of neuroscience knowledge, since there might be a million to one ratio of understanding per effort spent.

Even the single bit of "Does the SM Higgs exist?" has far greater implications than just "1 bit of information" implies. And we will learn farm more than a 'few dozen' bits of information from the LHC.

Those bits may not be a million times more important than knowledge gained in other fields -- then again they may be. Many of the fields you might think are more important are only possible because of fundamental physics discovered earlier. When one bit of knowledge is a prerequisite for finding another, then saying not to discover the first because the second is more important is backwards.

Even if there isn't a direct prerequisite relationship, advancement of science and technology depends on increasing knowledge in all fields. You argue that we should not discover if the Standard Model is correct and study other things, but you don't know how the answer to these questions will affect these other fields. The only way to find out is to discover the answers. There is no other way to find those answers.

Your implicit assumption that any dollar not spent on the LHC would be spent on some other science is simply not true, so the cost/benefit comparison you want to make doesn't actually apply. So the question isn't about relative worth, it's about whether the information we can find out from the LHC about the fundamental nature of our universe is worth the investment.

A good comparison I think where you can more directly compare the discoveries would be in astronomy, comparing space telescopes to ground-based telescopes. With adaptive optics we can (finally) have ground-based scopes with as high a resolution as Hubble, but for much cheaper. So for each space telescope we could have many ground-based scopes. Then was Hubble not worth it? Well would it have been worth it to wait 20 years to make the discoveries Hubble did? Or more importantly and relevantly, what about the Chandra X-ray scope, or WISE, or the JWST which operate on frequencies which adaptive optics cannot ever match because the light simply doesn't penetrate the atmosphere?

Is it worth getting all those extra bits those ground based telescope could get at the cost of never discovering all the things you can only learn via space telescope?

Of course even within this singular field, it still isn't the case that we could have actually made that choice. Not launching Hubble, or Chandra, or JWST will not result in a commensurate number of extra ground-based telescopes being built.

Vastly more so the case when talking about vastly different fields of science. Cancelling JWST will not result in a dollar-equivalent amount of stem cell research. Shutting down LHC will not result in a sudden explosion of neuroscience research -- we're already doing that, using other sources of funding.

So basically you're saying we shouldn't learn if the Higgs exists because other things are more important even though we won't learn those things as a consequence of giving up the search for the Higgs.

That's why I encourage scientists away from particle physics and into other areas like biophysics, nonlinear physics, fluid dynamics, bioengineering, neuroscience, machine intelligence and applied mathematics.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what position you're in where you can do such a thing and they'll listen. Tenured professor lecturing grad students? Maybe in some department where you feel your funding is being cannibalized by the physics dept.?

In any case, I can only hope that those interested in particle physics realize how short sited and misguided this encouragement is.

Re:One bit more...

[Rising Ape]

For example, instead of researching the basic nature of matter, we could be trying to build self-replicating nanoscale machinery

That would be engineering, not science. You don't learn anything about nature by doing that.

And we do spend a hell of a lot more on almost everything than particle physics. When I worked in the field, the budget for particle physics and astronomy was less than 0.02% or so of GDP for my country.

Re:One bit more...

[ShooterNeo]

I guess from my (admittedly biased) perspective, developing something that let you have more of EVERYTHING more easily and cheaply is a better investment than a moonshot effort that has no known payoff at all.

Self-replicating nanoscale machinery would be a risky effort that might result in enormous gains, but better robotics and machine intelligence and more infrastructure are all lower risk investments that definitely improve material wealth.

do you have your Crowbars ready?

[Joe_Dragon]

do you have your Crowbars ready?

Collision energy 8 TeV

[Old Wolf]

Nobody mentioned it yet, but the 4 TeV is the energy per proton, so the energy of each collision is 8 TeV. 2011 operated at 7 TeV.

My father lives in a femtobarn

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I get that in gigawatts please?

This...

[wbr1]

Due to a decision made at Chamonix, the LHC will operate with a 4 TeV beam energy in 2012.

Is a lot of energy. In fact, I think it is what the Mayans were talking about.

NO HIggs

[Anonymous Coward]

Well is interesting that they will not find the Boson... because it do not exist.

my 2 cents...

Discussion

[SomnusAlpha]

Here is a quick discussion on the increase in energies from Steve Myers, director for accelerators and Sergio Bertlucci, director for research: https://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1423359