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Large Hadron Collider May Have Produced New Matter

Covalent writes "The Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator and the 'Big Bang machine' that was used to discover what appears to be the long-sought Higgs boson particle (as announced July 4), may have another surprise up its sleeve this year: The LHC looks to have produced a new type of matter, according to a new analysis of particle collision data by scientists at MIT and Rice University. The new type of matter, which has yet to be verified, is theorized to be one of two possible forms: Either 'color-glass condensate' — a flattened nucleus transformed into a 'wall' of gluons, which are smaller binding subatomic particles, or it could be 'quark-gluon plasma,' a dense, soup or liquid-like collection of individual particles."

238 comments

  1. First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    that matters.

    1. Re:First post by durrr · · Score: 1

      Speaking of matter: a wall of gluons sounds just like the ultra strong base material needed to construct orbital superstructures. Could anyone enlighten us as to the expected material properties?(let me guess: halflife ½ picosecond)

    2. Re:First post by sconeu · · Score: 4, Funny

      Since it's made of gluons, it's probably very sticky.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    3. Re:First post by newcastlejon · · Score: 2

      Orbital Superstructures? Nah, vacuum welding is bad enough without adding gluons to the mix.

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    4. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      If we could create this type of matter and it actually had any interesting properties, what makes you think we'd need the 1960s space fantasies you dream about? It's like discovering nuclear power and wondering what kind of steam locomotive we could build with it. Here's a hint, technology changes your base perceptions and your needs. If we did have the tremendous technologies you think we need to get into space, we wouldn't need to get into space. You're a Space Nutter.

    5. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's like discovering nuclear power and wondering what kind of steam locomotive we could build with it.

      Hilarious example, considering how nuclear power works. You realize a nuclear plant is just a steam turbine, right?

    6. Re:First post by icebike · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's like discovering nuclear power and wondering what kind of steam locomotive we could build with it.

      Odd then, that just about every use of nuclear power is to drive a steam engine/turbine first, and a generator second.

      Old tech never dies, it just gets embedded.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    7. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Worse case is they find this new matter consists of smaller particles. RESET.

      And the beat keeps moving on....

    8. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      And how may locomotives use one? That's right, none, as it is completely impractical. Nuclear power is the result of understanding matter, which leads to smaller electronics, which leads to the Information Age, where locomotives are sort of in the background...

      See what I'm saying? New technologies that are the result of new physics overturn everything.

      I didn't realize I needed to dumb it down to this level, but here we are.

    9. Re:First post by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Funny

      And how may locomotives use one?

      Excellent point. Can you imagine if we used our nuclear technologies for something so backward as, say, ironclad steamboats?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    10. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of a hybrid car that burns gasoline via an on-board generator to charge the batteries! CRAZY...

    11. Re:First post by lgw · · Score: 1

      Trains are still by far the most efficient way to haul cargo. New information technologies are great and all, but hauling bulk cargo about energy and efficiency, and steel wheels on steel rail are hard to beat.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    12. Re:First post by khallow · · Score: 1

      and steel wheels on steel rail are hard to beat.

      Float the cargo.

    13. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The ideas for most of the modern inventions precede us for milenia, even since the begining of history
      Television, cristal bals and magic mirrors
      Robots and androids, automatons and golems
      internet, oracle?
      flying
      Computing machines?
      even traveling across the space
      is there something new that wasn't thougth previously in one way or another?
      bring someone from antiquity and they will be amazed by our modern marvels, not because we did something new but because we did manage to make their dreams and old tales reality

    14. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Canal Barge beats Train 5 to1 on energy.

    15. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How many nuclear locomotives have been built?

    16. Re:First post by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 2

      Since it's made of gluons, it's probably very sticky.

      Oooohhh... you scientists with your technical mumbo-jumbo. Tell us what we really want to know - what does it taste like?

    17. Re:First post by styrotech · · Score: 4, Funny

      Since it's made of gluons, it's probably very sticky.

      I presume the anti particles are made of teflons.

    18. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That post was dense, and soup-like.

    19. Re:First post by Darby · · Score: 0

      Can you imagine if we used our nuclear technologies for something so backward as, say, ironclad steamboats?

      Nah, that would never work. There would be too much steam and you'd have to use the rest for something even more anachronistic...like a catapult or something.

    20. Re:First post by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Nicely done!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    21. Re:First post by Twinbee · · Score: 1

      It seems every energy tech apart from solar converts to turbine power before electricity. Are there any future energy techs (e.g. fusion) which produce electricity directly (or at least more directly)?

      --
      Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
    22. Re:First post by funwithBSD · · Score: 2

      Kindergarten paste.

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    23. Re:First post by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      Reminds me of every time someone wants to redesign a bicycle or a motorcycle.. They try to get ride of the chain.

      Despite the fact that the chain drive is increadably cheap, reliable and efficent compared to more complex solutions, like a drive shaft or belt.

      Steam turbines are very very efficent, very reliable, and depending the infrastructure required, relatively cheap.

      You get the added bonus of using the cooling system to generate energy, a good plan since most energy generators produce more heat than anything. Steam is good for taking all that chaotic waste heat and turning it back into something we can use: rotary power to turn a generator.
      not to mention extra radiation shielding from all that water.

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    24. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am sure it tastes like chicken

    25. Re: First post by Rational · · Score: 1

      In your world, computers just sort of float magically to people? You probably also think that food grows in supermarkets. Just because you are blind to the infrastructure, it doesn't mean it's any less important than it used to be.

      --
      "Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
    26. Re:First post by midicase · · Score: 1

      Why stop at water or ground? Nuclear powered airplanes. Wait, already attempted:

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

    27. Re:First post by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Canal Barge beats Train 5 to1 on energy.

      They have a slight speed disadvantage though.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    28. Re:First post by dywolf · · Score: 1

      It all depends on how you define efficiency. Plus trains have a far more limited list of origins and destinations. Is your efficiency cost/volume? Fuel/volume? Time/cost? Time/volume? Do you only care about speed? Or only about cost? This is why logistics managers/planners can make some serious bank.

      If you're defining efficiency how i think you are, container ships are even more efficient than trains, but even more limited in routes.

      Container ships are the most efficient for anything connected by sea beyond X distance. Two ports 20 miles apart would likely be better served by rail or truck.
      Trains are the most efficient for anything not connected by sea, or connected by sea less than X apart, that is more than Y distance apart by road. Two towns or warehouse just a few blocks or miles apart are better served by truck.
      Trucks are best for anything less than Y or X apart and connected by roads, or where the time of loading/unloading and changing venues outweighs the efficiencies of the others.

      Trains dont have to stop at night, truckers do. But truckers can go more places. Some truckers unload themselves, others are part of companies that handle the loading/unloading and the trucker simply disconnects his rig and picks up a new already loaded trailer. Do you truck to a train terminal, get loaded on a train, then back on a truck near destination, or just truck the whole way?

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    29. Re:First post by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Tell us what we really want to know - what does it taste like?

      I doubt that your tongue, or the nerve cells in your taste buds, would survive the experience.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    30. Re:First post by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion apparently does just that and also had no ( or very low ) neutron emission.

      Site is http://focusfusion.org/ and his hour-long Google TechTalk from 2007 is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4w_dzSvVaM

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    31. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nuclear power wasn't exactly a building block for the Information Age. We could have developed semiconductors without ever having nuke tech.

    32. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Today's nuclear navy *is* "ironclad steamboats". Okay, technically "steelclad steamboats".

    33. Re:First post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't put one past you, can they?

    34. Re:First post by surd1618 · · Score: 1

      http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/town/urban_utility

      Just so you know, some of the best bicycles now have belt drives and up to 14-speed internal hub gears.

  2. No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    No comments, as no one here actually knows anything on the subject. Soon to be FULL of comments, by people passing themselves off as actually being subject matter experts on the topic.

    1. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      As a matter of fact, I am an expert on this topic.

    2. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Revotron · · Score: 5, Funny

      Imaginary studies done in my head suggest a strong positive correlation between average time-to-comment (TTC) on heavily-scientific Slashdot articles, and the current Wikipedia loading times. Increased delays in Slashdot commenting can be attributed to increased delays in reading the subject's Wikipedia page to amass a sufficient arsenal of technical jargon and basic principles to pass oneself off as an "academic".

      Vanity, thy name is Slashdot.

    3. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by The_Wilschon · · Score: 5, Informative

      Let me 'splain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.

      So, when you collide high-energy particles, you get lots of outgoing particles. Sometimes more, sometimes fewer. One thing that you can do to study the outgoing particles is to look at all pairs of tracks in the event (the combinatorics get very large, but you can still do it), and make a histogram of how close together all the pairs were. When you do this, you find that there is a proliferation of tracks that are very close to one another. This is because the outgoing particles tend to come in clusters (we call them "jets"), all moving in approximately the same direction. This happens, more or less, because if you get one outgoing particle with very high energy, but it is an unstable particle, its decay products will tend to be moving in roughly the same direction as the original particle.

      Now, you can also do something slightly more sophisticated: instead of just looking at the angle (in any direction) between two tracks, you can use spherical coordinates, and look separately at the angular distance *around* the beamline (azimuth / phi) and the angular distance *from* the beamline (polar angle / theta) (although we actually convert the polar angle into a strange quantity called "pseudorapidity" instead ... this is unimportant for this discussion). When you do that, if you look at events with relatively few outgoing tracks (<35), you see exactly what you expect: an proliferation of tracks that are close in both azimuth and polar angle -- jets again.

      On the other hand, if you look at events with lots of outgoing tracks (>= 110), you still see the excess of tracks that are close in both azimuth and polar angle from jets, but you also see a "ridge" -- an excess of tracks that have almost exactly the same azimuth as one another, but have very different polar angles. This is unexpected, and unexpected results == SCIENCE!

      So, we expect particles to appear tightly clustered together, but what we see (in some events) is more like a flat spray of particles that goes from one beamline to the other, but is very tightly constrained in one azimuthal slice.

      Terrible analogy: We expect cities to occupy a roughly circular area of the earth's surface -- tightly constrained in both latitude (polar angle) and longitude (azimuth). This is like finding a planet that has a city that stretches from pole to pole, but only along a single meridian -- tightly constrained in longitude but totally unconstrained in latitude. It's just plain weird.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    4. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by M0j0_j0j0 · · Score: 1

      Oh enough on this, where is the car analogy guy when you need it?!

    5. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well said sir!

    6. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anubis+IV · · Score: 2

      Oh enough on this, where is the car analogy guy when you need it?!

      Based on what I got out of the summary, the basic car analogy would be that a lot of cars exploded, and now the crime scene investigators are trying to figure out if the cars went "KABOOOOM!"

      *smashes hands into each other a few times, than slowly spreads them out like a fireball from an movie-style car crash explosion*

      or "KERBLAM!!!"

      *makes the same hand wavy motions, but adds in some slow motion facial expressions of people getting into an accident*

      They're not sure which it is yet.

    7. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They shoot a Chrysler and a BMW at eachother, and it produced a VW Beatle. Not what you would expect.

    8. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by jdray · · Score: 1

      So, can you fill us in? What are the implications of such discoveries? Or is this another one of those things that happen (a happy accident) with no real consequence besides filling up a few research papers?

      --
      The Spoon
      Updated 6/28/2011
    9. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      I just blew modding by posting earlier, but would have given you a +1 Insightful, rather than funny like everyone else. Except I couldn't get enough info on Slashdot forum & modding procedures off of Wikipedia. :-/

    10. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      You had me at "'splain" & lost me at combinatorics, ahem.

      So, to sum up boyz & girlz, particle physics is all about indirectly observing & then indirectly counting stamps. Kinda like stamp collecting, but there's a lot more of them, most of them are worthless, or worth far less than their cost & no one really cares except the collectors. Am I close...? ;-p

    11. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now, you can also do something slightly more sophisticated: instead of just looking at the angle (in any direction) between two tracks, you can use spherical coordinates, and look separately at the angular distance *around* the beamline (azimuth / phi) and the angular distance *from* the beamline (polar angle / theta)

      Physicists: reversing the symbols representing inclination and azimuth for no apparent reason since 1905.

    12. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by tolkienfan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did it for you: +1 Insightful

      Wait... DAMN!

    13. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      NO, no, it's like the largest freeway car pile-up in automotive history (ala end of Blues Brothers 2 :) & the investigators then have to figure out what/who caused it & why/how it happened.

    14. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Zephyn · · Score: 3, Funny

      Let me 'splain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.

      We've discovered the Dread Particle Roberts?

    15. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like a balloon and... something bad happens!

    16. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh enough on this, where is the car analogy guy when you need it?!

      Two cars collided head-on and all the debris, blood, fluids, and remains lined up in a 2' wide straight line at a 104 degree angle to the collision. This was not the expected outcome.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    17. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Sulphur · · Score: 2

      As a matter of fact, I am an expert on this topic.

      As a matter of fact, I drove by a Holiday Inn Express once.

    18. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      See, it sucks to contribute as the real workers never get to actually make the rules! ;)

    19. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by lennier · · Score: 2

      particle physics is all about indirectly observing & then indirectly counting stamps. Kinda like stamp collecting, but there's a lot more of them, most of them are worthless, or worth far less than their cost & no one really cares except the collectors. Am I close...? ;-p

      Pretty much, except that around 1945 one of those stamps turned out to be capable of giving a wedgie to an entire city.

      And suddenly a lot of jocks became extremely interested in stamp collecting.

      For the last fifty years most of the stamps have been looking boring again, but the jocks are still nervous that there might be a super-mega-wedgie hidden in there, so they're still funding and organizing the Philatelic Club meetings just in case.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    20. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Xerxes314 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, it's just cool because it probes new regions of the parameter space (temperature and density) of quantum chromodynamics (the fundamental theory of the strong nuclear force). Knowing what nuclear matter does under extreme conditions teaches us new things about what kinds of matter that might exist in the cores of neutron stars, whether there could be more compact kinds of stars between neutron stars and black holes and what conditions were like during the first moments after the Big Bang. It also gives us more data to compare against the predictions of quantum chromodynamics, which will help us make sure that that's actually the correct theory of the nuclear forces. I can't think of any practical applications (say, to fission cross-sections or something) off the top of my head, but that doesn't imply they don't exist.

    21. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by tp1024 · · Score: 0

      And this is what slashdot calls informative these days. ;)

    22. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      As a matter of fact, I am an expert on this topic.

      Confirmed. I am an expert in identifying experts on topics.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    23. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by lgw · · Score: 2

      I don't htink there will be any "this generation" practical applications to anything the LHC finds - anything that only exists at LHC energy level is pretty far out there. Indirectly, however, particle physics was stalled for 20 years following the cancellation of the SCSC, and the LHC got it moving again. Fundamental experimental physics research always pays off in the long term, as it's our most basic understanding of the universe.

      Finding some serious flaw in the standard model, which is as crufty and annoying as it is accurate and predictive, could prompt a huge change in our understanding of the very small. I couldn't guess what practical advances we'd see 20 years later, but I'm sure they'd be revolutionary, as that's been the pattern so far.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    24. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by budgenator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think the coolest part is it surprised them, that doesn't happen to often to those guys.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    25. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's already passed on its properties to the newly-detected Higgs Boson and is currently living like a king off the coast of Spain.

    26. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Nostromo21 · · Score: 0

      LOL - I have no idea what stamp/event you're referring to, but it's funny anyway! ;)

    27. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by torsmo · · Score: 1

      The bombs dropped on Hiroshima/Nagasaki?

    28. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      Clearly not,

      There were surviviors.

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    29. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should they ?

      https://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/16/science/scientists-use-light-to-create-particles.html

    30. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds like a particle condensing to a waveform then pushing back against space time making a "straight" line of itself.

    31. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Me too!

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    32. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by AnotherAnonymousUser · · Score: 1

      Amazing explanation. I wish I had mod points :)

    33. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Ok so it's not so funny then I take it...? :-/
      So, the US released a stamp commemorating its fine efforts in progressing mass murder to a new level...?

    34. Re:No comments, then a flood of experts by peawormsworth · · Score: 1

      When experimenting with having people drive cars at high speed into a wall, we usually end up with a random mush. But sometimes with the right can and the right people, a transformer walks away.

  3. Maybe... by Razgorov+Prikazka · · Score: 1

    The matter is that stuff that comes right after Ununoctium - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ununoctium - and is usually only found dowsing.
    Or the stuff that makes makes homoeopathy work. And where aura's are made up from.
    Finally proof!
    Ha, I bet you wont find any disbelievers any more now!

    Now I think of it.... Blast! I always claimed that the paranormal cant be measured with 'conventional' physics... Now I am truly confused what exactly to believe...
    I'll be off to my tarot cards to see what I shall make of this news!
    G'bye all!

    --
    rm -rf --no-preserve-root / ...and let /dev/null sort them out...
    1. Re:Maybe... by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      You know who you gotta call man!

  4. Who's on first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Large Hadron Collider May Have Produced New Matter

    Nature beat them to it.

  5. “You don't expect quark gluon plasma effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Nobody expects quark gluon plasma effects!

  6. New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know its just the heading, but the whole "new matter" vs "new TYPE of matter" is kind of an important distinction.

    1. Re:New Matter? by buanzo · · Score: 0

      +1

      --
      Buanzo Consulting - 15 Years of GNU/Linux experience, for you.
    2. Re:New Matter? by vmxeo · · Score: 1, Funny

      I know its just the heading, but the whole "new matter" vs "new TYPE of matter" is kind of an important distinction.

      Does it *really* matter?

    3. Re:New Matter? by Lucky75 · · Score: 1

      Haha yea, I was originally like "HOLY SHIT! One of the fundamental laws of the universe has been potentially broken? FREE ENERGY FOR ALL!"

      --
      DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
    4. Re:New Matter? by osu-neko · · Score: 2

      Making new matter does not require breaking any fundamental laws. All it requires is some energy...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    5. Re:New Matter? by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 1, Funny

      What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.

    6. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oddly enough, both may be accurate. I don't know enough of teh details though.

    7. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You knew parent poster assumed "from nothing". Why do ass-pies with a complete lack of common sense always have to flock to Slashdot?

      Shouldn't the lack of UTF-8/Unicode support bug the living hell out of you?
      If not... NOW IT DOES!

    8. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An enormous distinction by any measure.

    9. Re:New Matter? by Dishevel · · Score: 1

      How would a device that use a a metric shit ton of Beowulf clusters of LoCs of power to smash things together create anything from nothing?

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    10. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It should really be "a new state of matter" as in gas, liquid, solid, plasma and a few others.

    11. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So... big bang. What came first, energy or matter?

    12. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes.

    13. Re:New Matter? by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Yeah? Well, last I checked, there was plain matter, antimatter & dark matter. That's it, I'm out!
      Now, to get back on topic, are they saying that they've managed to 'fuse' some sort of matter with high energy particles to create some sort of gluon hybrid porridge?
      Is there anyone here who speaks layman physicist English, with nothing more than high school maths pls? :-/

    14. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do ass-pies with a complete lack of common sense always have to flock to Slashdot?

      Good question... why are you here?

    15. Re:New Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it just me, or are circles pointless?

    16. Re:New Matter? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      >Is it just me, or are circles pointless?

      Not if you look at them side on.

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    17. Re:New Matter? by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 1

      >It depends from which direction you are looking:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYWUIxGdl4

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    18. Re:New Matter? by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      What I want to know is why autotrophs would need to drool.

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
  7. Do we need a new Mendeleev? by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 0

    All these particles don't make any real sense, to me at least...

    We need a new Mendeleev! We need a new structure to classify all these new subatomic particles.

    Where are the gaps? Mendeleev was initially ridiculed for producing a poor graph and later a table which just rearranged a simple pattern long known. However, we now know the strengths of Mendeleev's rearrangements - the periodic table.

    A question - Where is the a new Mendeleev? Do we need a new Mendeleev? Do we aleady have a table which can be used to pinpoint missing particles as simple as when we knew to search for e.g. technetium?

    We need a new Mendeleev!!!

    1. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Noughmad · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not really. The current known elementary particles are all neatly arranged into the Standard Model. The one gap (Higgs boson) was recently filled. What we now need is to discover some process which shows the SM to be incomplete.

      --
      PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
    2. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mendeleev is working on wall street.

      Peter: I’ve been with the firm for 2 and half years working with Eric that whole time... But I hold a doctorate in engineering, specialty in propulsion, from MIT, with a Bachelors from Penn.
      Jared: What’s a specialty in propulsion, exactly?
      Peter: My thesis was a study in the way that friction ratios effect steering outcomes in aeronautical use under reduced gravity loads.
      Jared: So, you are a rocket scientist?
      Peter: I was.
      Jared: Interesting... How did you end up here?
      Peter: Well it’s all just numbers really, you’re just changing what you’re adding up. And if I may speak freely... the money here is, considerably more attractive.
      - Margin call

    3. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by CMYKjunkie · · Score: 2

      Mendeleev didn't have Slashdot to waste free time that you could... er, *ahem*, HE DID use to make the table.

    4. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Higgs is far from confirmed. Just calm yourself down there a bit.

    5. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 5, Interesting

      We know quite certainly that the standard model is incomplete both from quantum theory and cosmology: If one rejects fine tuning, something has to keep the Higgs mass from diverging due to Top loops. Above a few TeV, something has to keep vector boson scattering cross sections sane. Dark matter and dark energy have to be made of something.

      Unfortunately, that it is incomplete is about all the hell we've got at this point. The LHC has basically been ruling proposed SUSY models out unceasingly, and if we're unlucky and New Physics lies past 14TeV, it will likely be a damn long time until we discover it because the LHC took up the theoretical physics budgets of nearly every nation that does theoretical physics for the better part of a decade to build, and they already had the tunnel. To make significant advances with a successor hadron accelerator we'd be talking about building something at least several times larger and the obstacles are enormous... Staggering costs, the irradiation of the inner detectors, data processing, construction times stretching into multiple decades. Not to mention that the LHC consumed most of the world's supply of helium for years on end.

      In the worst-case scenario, there's nothing significantly new until one reaches strong-force unification, and that lies a trillion times beyond the LHC,

    6. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      So have you missed the 6-sigma confirmation news a couple of weeks after the initial (still un-confirmed) news?
      Or did you choose to ignore them?

    7. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by jdray · · Score: 1
      --
      The Spoon
      Updated 6/28/2011
    8. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by marcosdumay · · Score: 2

      It was a confirmation of a particle with a mass similar and decayments to what is expected for the Higgs. It's not confirmation of the Higgs.

      There are still a lot of properties that must be measured before we call the Higgs "confirmed".

    9. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Nostromo21 · · Score: 2

      I think it's been 'tentatively observed' & the scientific jury is still out. And 6-sigma, which only requires accuracy to within 0.000002% defects, is a far cry from proving anything about a particle that only exists for 10x22secs! I didn't know that the scientific method was now using manufacturing/business principles to prove anything btw ;-p.

    10. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Just to add to that, wasn't there another boson that came onto the scene, which looked a lot like Pete's but wasn't the same one in fact? I would have thought that would be enough to muddy the waters from any proofs to date.

    11. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So have you missed the 6-sigma confirmation news a couple of weeks after the initial (still un-confirmed) news?
      Or did you choose to ignore them?

      That was the confirmation of a "Higgs-like" particle. They confirmed that it has some characteristics of the higgs, but they have not yet confirmed others, and for that reason have stopped short of claiming it is the higgs.

      Before you go complaining that people "missed the news', maybe you should actually read the articles when they get posted, instead of stopping at the headline.

    12. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Tomster · · Score: 4, Funny

      To make significant advances with a successor hadron accelerator we'd be talking about building something at least several times larger and the obstacles are enormous... Staggering costs, the irradiation of the inner detectors, data processing, construction times stretching into multiple decades. Not to mention that the LHC consumed most of the world's supply of helium for years on end.
       

      Well we'd best get started then. I can contribute $100 or so and will pick up some helium balloons from the party store. Anyone else in?

    13. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it's probably really 11 or 13 dimensional, as opposed to the 2-dim hack job Mendeleev did.

    14. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by lennier · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that the LHC consumed most of the world's supply of helium for years on end.

      Admittedly that was just for the after-hours office parties. But if you put 10,000 physicists in a room, how else are you going to keep them entertained?

      (You really don't want to see the Silly Putty and Slinkie budget.)

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    15. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by khallow · · Score: 1

      Dark matter and dark energy have to be made of something.

      Dark energy isn't made of anything. It's the shape of space. Although it is worth noting that curvature isn't one of those things treated by the Standard Model.

      As to dark matter, it's always possible that dark matter is some sort of particle we already have, maybe, for example, a huge number of extremely low energy neutrinos.

      Unfortunately, that it is incomplete is about all the hell we've got at this point. The LHC has basically been ruling proposed SUSY models out unceasingly, and if we're unlucky and New Physics lies past 14TeV, it will likely be a damn long time until we discover it because the LHC took up the theoretical physics budgets of nearly every nation that does theoretical physics for the better part of a decade to build, and they already had the tunnel. To make significant advances with a successor hadron accelerator we'd be talking about building something at least several times larger and the obstacles are enormous... Staggering costs, the irradiation of the inner detectors, data processing, construction times stretching into multiple decades. Not to mention that the LHC consumed most of the world's supply of helium for years on end.

      I guess we'll just have to figure out how to do the next generation collider cheaper then.

    16. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In last month's Scientific American, there was a great article about growing evidence that quarks aren't elementary, but rather are made up of 3 or 5 or 6 smaller particles (depending on sub-hypothesis). Based on why they thought so, it seems like this is the case and it's just the actual number that's unknown. Tantalizing shit! My big SM wall poster is sooo wrong. But that's why I love science.

      lol captcha: screwed

    17. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This was done years ago. First the idea of quarks explained and organized baryons and mesons (even with pretty pictures that eventually had holes filled in). Then this was expanded as more quarks were found. Then the Standard model comes together which includes both the combinations of six quarks, in three families, and the three families of leptons for a total of six of them too. All the different combinations of quarks work just like the periodic table, just there are six of them instead of making a table about just difference in number of protons. And then you have stuff like QGP, which is more like the quark version of neutronium, and wouldn't show up on a periodic table in the same way a neutron star wouldn't either.

    18. Re:Do we need a new Mendeleev? by Convector · · Score: 1

      You're going to waste helium on balloons? It's much more valuable as a coolant for the collider.

  8. New matter by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    For everyone who got bored with the old one.

    But seriously. So what exactly is that "new matter". And, more important, why didn't it exist before? I mean, let's be blunt here, the universe is friggin' huge and I kinda doubt the conditions in the LHC are universally unique. And yet we never observed that kind of matter before?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:New matter by vlm · · Score: 2

      And yet we never observed that kind of matter before?

      People focus on the accelerator, but what really matters is the detector. And now that we have a nice detector, lets get a high beam current at a high enough energy to make something interesting to look at.

      If you just want to look at high energy collisions, wait around for high energy cosmic rays. Individually some are much higher energy than any accelerator, but the equivalent of the "beam current" is ridiculous low, like two digit orders of magnitude lower.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:New matter by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The conditions that the LHC can recreate are unique in that they are thought to have been present only during the Big Bang. As such, yes, this could be new matter that we haven't seen before anywhere else.

      And that's why the LHC was and is every particle physicist's wet dream: they get to see and play with the conditions of the Big Bang. Nothing else does.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
    3. Re:New matter by drdread66 · · Score: 5, Informative

      There are two proposed explanations for the signal seen at CMS, and I'm not sure I would describe either as "new." The color glass condensate is basically a nucleus that is flattened into a pancake due to relativistic length contraction in the direction of motion at high energies. This flattening effect spawns large numbers of gluons (the particles that mediate the Strong nuclear force), wich in turn exposes all sorts of interesting effects. The quark-gluon plasma is a state presumed to exist shortly (say, 10 microseconds or less) after the Big Bang, when the universe's energy was packed into an extremely small volume. At high energies and small distances, quarks (the components of hadrons i.e. protons and neutrons) and gluons are thought to separate easily, creating a hot soup of strong force particles. As the QGP expands and cools, it eventually "freezes out" and you get a shower of normal matter particles. This, too, is thought to have happened after the big bang.

      Both of these conditions have been observed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in the USA. The CGC was reported in 2003/2004, and the QGP in 2010/2011. So while observing them at LHC is exciting, neither is really "new." LHC's luminosity is much higher than RHIC's, though, so one would expect to be able to study both conditions more readily...

    4. Re:New matter by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      And yet we never observed that kind of matter before?

      Probably (at least this has been the case with a lot of accelerator discoveries, AFAIK) because you need phenomenal amounts of energy to produce these particles/states of matter, and while such energies might exist all over the universe, none of them are close enough to us (thankfully) that we'd be able to observe the (and this is the second reason) ridiculous short lives of these unstable particles/states.

      Muons created in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays, for instance, only get as far as the surface where we can detect them because of time dilation.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    5. Re:New matter by perceptual.cyclotron · · Score: 2

      I think when scientists discuss a "new" X, it's generally understood to mean "newly observed" or "new to us". In this particular instance though, we don't even have to make those presumptions - because the claim is for a new type, which refers to our own arbitrary classification schemes. In this sense, it is indeed new, by necessity, because it is a classification we did not have before...

    6. Re:New matter by bunratty · · Score: 3, Informative

      That's not true. There are collisions occurring in Earth's atmosphere that dwarf the energies explored by any colliders humans have built. The LHC has been designed for a maximum of 14 TeV. Cosmic rays can have over one million times more energy. That's one reason we're not concerned about the LHC creating a black hole that will swallow the Earth, because it would have happened naturally by now if that had a significant possibility of happening.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    7. Re:New matter by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Well, there is that entire range of high-energy physics above that which supernovas use to create all the heavy elements. How much energy is required to make iron or lead or gold for example, considering we can't even make Helium reliably as yet...?
      What about the energy levels needed to create a (micro) black hole? Or is that simply crunching mass together rather than energy, allowing for the duality of course? I'd be curious to know from the real prop-heads here what the highest possible energy density output we know of is. I believe I read somewhere from memory that we could break apart space-time itself at a quantum level if we had enough squillion Joules...?

    8. Re:New matter by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Fusion requires energies of around only about 1 MeV. The LHC operates in the TeV range, which is a million times more energy than required for fusion.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    9. Re:New matter by slew · · Score: 1

      As far as I can tell, this is probably not best described as "new matter", but perhaps more like a distribution from a scattering collision that was theorized to exist, but not yet observed (although there are debates if it has been seen before in other colliders).

      I'm not up on all the details, but as I remember it, there is a mathematical result from QCD (quantum chromo-dynamics) that scattering angle has a power-law relationship which varies with energy (or something like that). I guess they found some scattering corrolation in a recent lead-ion/proton collision experiment that fit with pretty high energies. Apparently, the underlying theory seems to be well explained by QCD so that evidence of this scattering distribution would infer the energy-level consistant with a temporary presence of a certain configuration of matter during the collision: either a quark-gluon plasma, or perhaps even a color-glass condensate (basically a nucleus squished so much so that temporarily it looks like gluons frozen in a pancake configuration).

      Unfortuantly, I'm not an expert in this area...

    10. Re:New matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its not just about creating black holes. They are created all the time. We just don't know much about them and nothing about smaller ones.

      Yes, statistically we expect there to be interactions bigger than the LHC, around 50 times bigger. But these don't happen when we want them, inside a big detector in controlled conditions. Where we can study what the hell is going on.

        What is the point of creating something, if there is no one to see it.

        Saying that because these kind of interactions happen all the time therefore the LHC is a waste of time. Its like saying fusion research is a waste of time because the sun does it.

    11. Re:New matter by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      You're talking about hydrogen fusion only, or most elements...? I guess the difficulty to date has been in creating a working reactor for a sustained, controllable fusion reaction, but I didn't realise we could fuse elements so easily inside colliders, eh.

    12. Re:New matter by bunratty · · Score: 1

      I never said anything like the LHC is a waste of time. I was simply pointing out that the statement "The conditions that the LHC can recreate are unique in that they are thought to have been present only during the Big Bang" is incorrect.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    13. Re:New matter by bunratty · · Score: 1

      Controlling and sustaining a fusion reaction isn't the hardest part. The hardest part is getting out significantly more energy than you put in. Fusing just small numbers of nuclei is fairly easy. According to Wikipedia, "all it takes is a vacuum tube, a pair of electrodes, and a high-voltage transformer; fusion can be observed with as little as 10 kV between electrodes."

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    14. Re:New matter by VortexCortex · · Score: 1

      Its like saying fusion research is a waste of time because the sun does it.

      Introducing: The Dyson Sphere!
      "Stop Wasting Sun while we have the Time to do it."

    15. Re:New matter by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That silly vacuum cleaner is now a sphere?

    16. Re:New matter by tbird81 · · Score: 1

      the universe is friggin' huge and I kinda doubt the conditions in the LHC are universally unique. And yet we never observed that kind of matter before?

      It's because the universe is huge that we not seen every type of particle that might exist somewhere in this huge universe.

    17. Re:New matter by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 1

      The main difference is that the LHC does the collisions inside an extremely awesome detector. This detector can measure what the results are of the collision. A proton coming in at 0.9999999999999999999999951c carries the kinetic energy of a 60 mph baseball, but we can't really measure much more than that. We can't measure much about what happened when it hit our atmosphere, because our sensors were to far away. We can't even be sure it was a proton. It had aproximately 40,000,000 times the energy the LHC can impart on a particle, that we can measure.

      In short: nature is awesome, but hard to measure. Lab tests are less awesome, but we can set them up so we can measure them.

      --
      Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
  9. Re:“You don't expect quark gluon plasma effe by emho24 · · Score: 1

    or the Spanish Inquisition?

    --
    You must gather your party before venturing forth.
  10. Mass Effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Please be Element Zero! I for one welcome our new sentient spaceship overlords.

    1. Re:Mass Effect by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Nah, Omega eats Element Zeroes for breakfast! ;)

    2. Re:Mass Effect by Neil+Boekend · · Score: 1

      Element Zero (as in atomic number zero) is easy: neutron stars are made of them.

      --
      Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
  11. Re:Taxpayer funded waste. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    3/10
    Try harder next time

  12. finally! unobtainium! by swschrad · · Score: 1

    now I can fix my really old stuff

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  13. Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are there any dangers in creating new matter? Does it interact with existing matter in odd ways? Can it explode?

    Does anyone even know?

    1. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 1

      Obviously they lived long enough to report on it, so I say all systems are green. Unfortunately this may not have been the first time someone created new matter, it just never made it to Sashdot.

      --
      I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
    2. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Matter is just energy. No real concerns about energy. The explosions can't be any more powerful than what's already going on, actually it has to be less powerful because there is no way to convert energy with 100% efficiency. So the amount of potential destruction has to be less than that of the LHC itself.

    3. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Does anyone even know?

      Nope. But you can keep an eye on things here!

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 2

      Yes, yes, yes, no.

      --

      ---
      ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
    5. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by Cenan · · Score: 1
      --
      ... whatever ...
    6. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      Of course it explodes. The LHC can only detect the explosion derbris.

    7. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by lennier · · Score: 1

      No boom today. Boom tomorrow.
      There's always a boom tomorrow.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    8. Re:Any theoretical dangers to creating new matter? by mbone · · Score: 1

      There was a huge stink about this when the RHIC was brought on line (stranglets will eat Long Island !!!). This report covers the basics.

  14. Re:“You don't expect quark gluon plasma effe by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Oh, is that where the GP got that from? I had no idea.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  15. Coincidence? by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    Just when NASA was needing some exotic matter, new ones are discovered.

    At least, until we are used to see them, this new ones will be pretty exotic.

    1. Re:Coincidence? by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Particle physics and the standard model to some extent, with all the myriad of 'elementary' particles, such as hadrons, bosons, leptons, muons, gluons, quarks, etc, all with their many properties (colour, strangeness, spin charge, direction, flavour, etc), along with the many types of matter/energy/forces is getting just a little silly now methinks. Clearly the standard model isn't enough & just doesn't satisfy any longer. Most science is approximation & best fit for now anyway, so perhaps we'll never know any ultimate truths about our multiverse & the system is in fact 'weighted' against being 'gamed' to that extent.

    2. Re:Coincidence? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No current theory or observation would suggest the two forms/phases of matter discussed would have the properties needed for a warp drive. Warp drive doesn't need any random exotic new matter, it needs matter with a specific property that has never been observed in a form remotely close to what is needed. In other words, a specific exotic matter, unrelated to that being discussed here.

  16. ...is it Red? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...is it Red?

  17. Re:“You don't expect quark gluon plasma effe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, that appears to be the joke...

  18. Re:“You don't expect quark gluon plasma effe by The_Wilschon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Our chief weapon is Quarks! And Gluons! Our two chief weapons are Quarks and Gluons! And Plasma! ...

    --
    SIGSEGV caught, terminating

    wait... not that kind of sig.
  19. Done already by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 1

    At least the quark gluon plasma at RHIC in the US: story

  20. Periodic Table of Elements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On the topic of new matter being produced, could someone explain why we only have such a limited number of elements? Why don't we have thousands upon thousands? Is it really that hard to create more?

    If we were to find some phenomenally strong element on Mars, could we not create more of it here on earth?

    1. Re:Periodic Table of Elements by marcosdumay · · Score: 1

      We can create as many as we want. But they are not stable.

    2. Re:Periodic Table of Elements by amRadioHed · · Score: 1

      Because the larger the atoms get, the less stable they become. All of the new atoms we've every created have decayed almost instantly.

      --
      We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
  21. I'm not the worrying type by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But acting out of an abundance of caution, would it be too much to ask for the LHC scientists to take a break from their research until December 22, 2012?

  22. What goes around, comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used to be in a band called Wall of Gluons.

  23. Re:Taxpayer funded waste. by Applekid · · Score: 1

    Clearly they should have started a campaign on Kickstarter

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
  24. Why? by gr8_phk · · Score: 1

    What we now need is to discover some process which shows the SM to be incomplete.

    Why are physicists so eager to show the standard model to be lacking? Every few months now we see articles telling how better experiments are confirming the standard model and eliminating some of the alternatives. Just because the standard model isn't new or built on a spiffy new foundation like "string theory" doesn't mean we should want to kill it. In fact, some of those things probably don't deserve use of the term "theory" since they are more complex and haven't been experimentally confirmed in any way (except to the extent they match the simpler "standard model").

    1. Re:Why? by Dishevel · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why are physicists so eager to show the standard model to be lacking? Every few months now we see articles telling how better experiments are confirming the standard model and eliminating some of the alternatives. Just because the standard model isn't new or built on a spiffy new foundation like "string theory" doesn't mean we should want to kill it. In fact, some of those things probably don't deserve use of the term "theory" since they are more complex and haven't been experimentally confirmed in any way (except to the extent they match the simpler "standard model").

      Because the standard model does not work for everything. It dose not work well with what we think we know about general relativity.
      The assumption is that the universe does not in fact run on 2 differing sets of rules. So it follows that the standard model wile working very well for the things it works for is not in fact true. Even though we believe it to be false it still works really well so we use it.
      The standard model though is not a true representation of how the universe really works. We would like to find that.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    2. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's already lacking and they know it. Just check wikipedia. In short the main reason that the SM is incomplete because it doesn't incorporate gravity. The holy grail of physics* is to have a single mathematical model that unifies all forces, merge the theory of relativity with quantum theory.

      (Last time I checked. Maybe there's more to discover)

      .

    3. Re:Why? by lennier · · Score: 0

      The standard model though is not a true representation of how the universe really works. We would like to find that.

      And about five milliseconds later, we'd like to find out how to fix a galaxy-size hole if, hypotheticaly speaking, we accidentally melted one in a universe.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    4. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because the SM despite of being accurate to an unprecedent level we stil cheat to deal with infinities?
      because gravity doesn't want to play ball and make friends with the little ones?

    5. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we don't give the best possible effort to disprove the standard theory then we can have no real confidence that it is actually true. Science 101. Also it's not compatible with relativity, as another poster pointed out, so we already know it's wrong. Even if that wasn't the case trying to disprove the prevailing theory is still how science progresses. The prevailing theory could be just right, but then the Earth seemed perfectly flat for a long time - but it wasn't.

  25. I do this all the time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Creating a "wall of gluons" is my specialty. It happens to me all the time if I forget to stir the oatmeal or gravy.

  26. I'm no expert by Flipstylee · · Score: 2

    But i'm very happy with findings like these, if this gets us any closer to understanding the soup, maybe we can figure out
    the math for what happens inside the event horizon of a black hole. That will be a revolution. (har)

    1. Re:I'm no expert by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      I think you're just spinning a yarn to us now dude!

      Considering we are yet to interact in any meaningful way, much less create, a singularity of any sort, I do not think that indirect observation of the absence of light in roughly circular regions of space many light years away, with some funny gravitational effects thrown in, can be proven to in fact be BHs, by any maths we can concoct here on earth just yet. In fact, I'm starting to think that most high-level physics maths is just mental masturbation (Sheldon Cooper would be horrified! :).

    2. Re:I'm no expert by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      an electron has no size, but has spin, mass and charge. that's kind of singularity.

    3. Re:I'm no expert by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      I thought it was a wave/particle probability cloud...? And that's assuming we agree on whether there are squillions of electrons in the known universe, or just the one, ahem.

    4. Re:I'm no expert by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      no, there are properties of the electron such as position that have a probability cloud, the electron itself is a point particle. It also creates a fog of virtual particles around itself, and these have a spherical distribution

    5. Re:I'm no expert by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

      Bloody hell! The kooky universe we live in...as Hamlet said:

      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
      Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

      ...or perhaps that we even can dream of in our minds' eyes...

  27. Re:Taxpayer funded waste. by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 1

    Tell you what, go have yourself dropped of with nothing whatsoever on a remote South Pacific island for 3 years. If you're still alive when we come back, then and only then will I be willing to entertain your feeble "Waah, I hate taxes, I don't owe anything to anyone" tantrum with more than a momentary derisive smirk.

  28. Re:DAMN by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

    So what we now need on /. is a filter that automatically hides the first (several) post(s)? :)

    Hey, I found his 'caught with his pants down' 1st post amusing, but still contemplating whether the internal chuckle it raised is worthy of wasting a Funny mod point.

  29. Is it UU Matter? by rikkards · · Score: 1

    That can be handy

    1. Re:Is it UU Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. I'm out of clay again. Contrary to patch notes, it is NOT easier to find since 1.0.

  30. Re:DAMN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My Grandfather *has* a dead insensitive arsehole!

    And even though I am writing as AC, I can't believe I just typed those words. Sorry grandad, it was just a joke, OK? :) RIP.

  31. Strong nuclear force over distance by tepples · · Score: 1

    Elements are distinguished by the number of protons in the nucleus. The more protons, the bigger the nucleus, and the strong nuclear force holding these protons together gets weaker as the nucleus gets bigger than, say, that of lead.

    1. Re:Strong nuclear force over distance by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Iron, not lead.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:Strong nuclear force over distance by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool, thanks. And thanks to the others who responded below.

  32. Darwinwite by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    It's called Darwinwite, after the award the Earth will win on Dec. 21 when LHC ramps up the voltage to study it further.

    1. Re:Darwinwite by lennier · · Score: 1

      It's called Darwinwite, after the award the Earth will win on Dec. 21 when LHC ramps up the voltage to study it further.

      I think if you do it on a planetary scale you win a Fermi Award.

      --
      You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
    2. Re:Darwinwite by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Ooops, I meant Darwinite.

  33. Oh, oh, what could the matter be...? by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 2

    Seriously. What could the matter be?

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  34. QCD field, not decays by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    This happens, more or less, because if you get one outgoing particle with very high energy, but it is an unstable particle, its decay products will tend to be moving in roughly the same direction

    Not really - the particles (quarks or gluons in this case) can be perfectly stable. The problem is that the colour field that surrounds them acts like a really, really strong electric field. So strong that as the quark is blasted away from its opposite charged partner the energy in the field becomes so large that it is energetically favourable to create quark/anti-quark pairs and shrink the size of the field. This is why even up and down quarks produce jets despite being stable.

    This is unexpected, and unexpected results == SCIENCE!

    ...or a bug in your analysis! ;-)

  35. Depends by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 1

    I know its just the heading, but the whole "new matter" vs "new TYPE of matter" is kind of an important distinction.

    It depends on what the result is due to. Quark-gluon-plasma is really a phase of matter and, in fact, not really that new since it was discovered in jet-quench events at the LHC several years ago. If it is a colour-glass condensate then you could argue that this is a new type of matter since it is essentially something constructed out of gluons.

  36. Tony Stark called.. by kheldan · · Score: 1

    ..and he wants his Ironman 2 scene back.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  37. Re:May have? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    "I MAY be writing this comment from the space station"

    Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Physicist: We're only 99.9997% sure that it did cross the road.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  38. Re:Taxpayer funded waste. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You do realize that the use of force is not the only means of human cooperation, right?

  39. Cosmic Rays by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2

    The conditions that the LHC can recreate are unique in that they are thought to have been present only during the Big Bang.

    Actually really high energy cosmic rays recreate LHC collision energies everytime they hit a planet, star or any other material object. There are not very many of them but they can actually exceed LHC energies by quite a few orders of magnitude. Some large scale cosmic ray detectors get to study these but in nowhere near as much detail as we get to at the LHC but they do have some really cool detectors to play with such as a cubic kilometre of ice several kilometres under the south pole.

    So to answer the OP the universe almost certainly does create this type of matter but on Earth only high up in the atmosphere perhaps only a few times per year per square kilometre which makes it impossible to find.

  40. If you don't mind me asking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's the matter?

  41. new element : Winshillonium by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    in higher concentration predicted to cause normal people who need money to turn a blind eye to certain corporations misdeeds and post endlessy on ./ for money
    lmao captcha : cashier

  42. End of the Universe Yet? by retroworks · · Score: 1

    I was expecting something that really mattered, like... the end of all matter, according to Time magazine (and others) in 2008. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1838947,00.html

    --
    Gently reply
    1. Re:End of the Universe Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So are you a fag or a cunt? Maybe both?

    2. Re:End of the Universe Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      faggons can't bind to a cuntrino, their blowson mechanism has nothing upon which to act

  43. Re:Taxpayer funded waste. by pclminion · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You do realize that the use of force is not the only means of human cooperation, right?

    Actually, it is. Because those who are willing to be violent will obliterate those who are unwilling. That has nothing to do with human morals and everything to do with the laws of physics ("bullet through the brain causes a splattering of gray matter everywhere").

    Until you find a way for the "cooperators" to control the "violence users" in a way that doesn't involve violence, you're just wrong.

  44. orly? by jsepeta · · Score: 1

    your mother's a gluon.

    --
    Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
  45. Re:May have? by Nostromo21 · · Score: 1

    It has discovered just how little you can get for your 7.5 billion Euros these days! >8^D

  46. Re:“You don't expect quark gluon plasma effe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mod parent up.

  47. Re:May have? by sconeu · · Score: 1

    Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
    Physicist: We're only 99.9997% sure that it did cross the road.

    And that's assuming spherical chicken in a vacuum.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  48. Excellent point, yourself. by bdwoolman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One of the smaller nuclear power plants for a sub might actually be quite efficient for a very large locomotive running on a much larger-than-standard track. At speed with radiator cooling you might manage some good efficiency. Tanker cars for coolant. Green as hell as as far as CO2 is concerned. You could move heavy freight. I bet in the fifties or sixties some serious thought went into big nuclear trains. Not feasible then with the reactors they had, but some of the N power plants in our ships are very compact now I believe. Albeit highly classified. What a poor analogy the poster made in his tirade against the sci fi fan.. Because, obvious security and political disadvantages aside, using a nuclear power plant in a big-ass steam locomotive may not be a half bad idea. Especially these days.

    --
    "No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
    1. Re:Excellent point, yourself. by nitehawk214 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      One of the smaller nuclear power plants for a sub might actually be quite efficient for a very large locomotive running on a much larger-than-standard track. At speed with radiator cooling you might manage some good efficiency. Tanker cars for coolant. Green as hell as as far as CO2 is concerned. You could move heavy freight. I bet in the fifties or sixties some serious thought went into big nuclear trains. Not feasible then with the reactors they had, but some of the N power plants in our ships are very compact now I believe. Albeit highly classified. What a poor analogy the poster made in his tirade against the sci fi fan.. Because, obvious security and political disadvantages aside, using a nuclear power plant in a big-ass steam locomotive may not be a half bad idea. Especially these days.

      Yep.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    2. Re:Excellent point, yourself. by Xest · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it's all fun and games until someone steals the copper wire or even the tracks to sell illegaly as "scrap metal" and your nuclear engine goes flying off creating a ball of radioactive mess.

      Honestly though I suspect this is probably the biggest danger with this sort of thing - you'd probably have to spend an awful lot of time and money securing the track to ensure it's safety.

      Or maybe this is just a problem in the UK, where scrap metal theft regularly ruins my morning commute making me wonder why I don't just drive all the way in to the city centre and pay the extortionate parking fees instead!

    3. Re:Excellent point, yourself. by RaceProUK · · Score: 1
      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    4. Re:Excellent point, yourself. by dywolf · · Score: 1

      derailment accidents would suck though

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    5. Re:Excellent point, yourself. by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      No it's all over. I think part of the drive for super-conducting powerlines is that they'd be impossible to steal for any value since you can't just melt down superconductor (or not freeze yourself to death with refrigerant).

    6. Re:Excellent point, yourself. by steelfood · · Score: 1

      Diesel-powered and electric-powered locomotives are not a major source of CO2 emissions. Putting a nuke on rails nets very little benefit, while the increased risk is fairly substantial. The risk-reward ratio is simply not where it needs to be. It'd be safer and more efficient to build a large nuclear power plant that provides the power to the locomotive via a third rail. And diesel locomotive engines are already several times less polluting than diesel truck engines.

      There's a reason why only ocean-worthy military vessels are powered by nukes. It's too risky to be operated by civilians who are usually poorly-trained and of uncertain discipline, and too risky to be operated in populated areas. Even if it ran through remote areas, you wouldn't want to have to condemn small bits of land after every major accident.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    7. Re:Excellent point, yourself. by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Or maybe this is just a problem in the UK

      Nope, just as bed here in the US. Some businesses have had so many ACs ruined because thieves took the copper piping they've started surrounding them with locked fences and cameras. One dumbass got himself killed here in Springfield trying to steal wire off of a power line.

  49. 'quark-gluon plasma' by pgpalmer · · Score: 1

    'quark-gluon plasma,' a dense, soup or liquid-like collection of individual particles.

    Maybe this is what Star Trek is referring to with its "warp plasma".

  50. pardon me by kenorland · · Score: 1

    Is that a large hadron, or are you just happy to see me?

  51. Peak at Fe, boundary at Pb by tepples · · Score: 1

    True, there's a peak in stability around iron (26 protons), but all but two of the elements up through lead (82 protons) still have a stable isotope. Bismuth (83 protons) is just barely unstable, with a half-life in the quintillions of years. Polonium (84 protons) and the rest have no stable isotope.

  52. Better than gold standard by epSos-de · · Score: 1

    This new matter is actually better than gold as a standard for money exchange. Hell it is even better than bitcoin, since only the LHC can produce it.

  53. Cnocubo! by bdwoolman · · Score: 1

    How interesting. Well, no one can ever fault Russian engineers for a lack of vision. Execution is sometimes problematic. A nuclear Siberian express. Let's roll, comrades!

    --
    "No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
  54. You're making it too complicated by istartedi · · Score: 1

    There was no need to build a particle accelerator to get new matter. I can go down to the store and get new matter. Actually, all I need to do is step outside. I take a jar with me, open it up, collect new matter and come back. OK, well, technically it's not new; but it's new to me and that's what matters. Pun intended.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:You're making it too complicated by PPH · · Score: 1

      I can go down to the store and get new matter.

      Sign at a local store: Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  55. not really a discovery by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

    it sounds like it was not a discovery as, unless it exposed some sort of fundamental new behaviour of the basic forces or a new elementary particle. given knowledges of the principle forces and the elementary particles, one can predict any sort of matter that can occur or exist and that could be produced under any situation. so in this case, this discovery just verifies what could have already been predicted in a computer model.

  56. Headlines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Did Large Handron Collider produce some matter although not really new?" Nah that would not create enough clicks. Let's remove the question mark and other uncertainties as we want to follow the ./ rule of "hype by obscurity"...

  57. So... by tangent3 · · Score: 1

    A large hardon collider created "glue plasma" matter that is soup/liquid-like collection of particles?
    I think I've seen that porn before

  58. Am I the only one? by davidbrit2 · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one that occasionally worries that we might stumble across some edge case that breaks whatever is simulating our "universe", and the whole thing has to be shut down and started over? Not that I'm convinced of it, mind you, but the possibility is a nagging one.

  59. Nahquadria by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nahquadria

  60. Re:Nuclear locomotive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can you name it, "Blane the train?"

  61. Great points, Steelfood. by bdwoolman · · Score: 1

    I was gob smacked to see from Nitehawk214's post that Rosatom and the Russian Railroad were actually considering such a thing. When I raised the issue hypothetically it was to point out that technically such a thing was, perhaps, feasible. By no means was I meaning to suggest that it would or could be practical or desirable (Save CO2 green, which advantage you pointed out was negligible. And I agree.) Although... admit it. A monster nuclear locomotive roaring across the tundra at 350 MPH would be cooler than bees on roller skates. In a pave-the-earth kind of way, that is.

    Your other point that there are no civilian nuclear ships is really interesting upon consideration. Thanks.

    --
    "No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
  62. More like they... by Hylandr · · Score: 1

    It's more likely they made a new element, rather than a new type of matter.

    Pretty sure there would have been some pretty big explosions and readjustment to physics while matter, and anti-matter scoot aside for the new-comer.

    Just sayin. :)

    --
    ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  63. Re:DAMN by buanzo · · Score: 1

    I was going for funny. Thx!

    --
    Buanzo Consulting - 15 Years of GNU/Linux experience, for you.