My favorite line from the article is "overblown rhetoric - 'this country will never be the same again'". That is exactly what I've been saying. Does anybody else here think that the reason why the country will never be the same again is because big media keeps saying it never will be?
I live in Canada, and that's definitely the case up here - people are only nervous because they are told to be. Things don't *have* to change forever. I'm not saying that certain things shouldn't change (security, etc.) but I think people just like talking about how the whole national psyche has changed. It hasn't really.
There are a couple of things you must note about particle accelerators. First, when they say 500 GeV (giga electron-volt, linear accelerator - the particles actually collide with an energy of 1000 GeV (or 1 TeV) because the electron (E-) and positron (E+) are accelerated in different directions, each with a potential of 500 GeV. Note that in a collision, the full 1 TeV is available for use in creating new particles. In a "stationary-target" experiment (such as ramming a proton into a stationary proton target), only about 10% of the acceleration energy is available for use in creating new particles and probing the depths of the nucleus.
Also, when they say "500 GeV", note that the SSC (superconducting super-collider planned for Waxahachie, Texas) was supposed to be 10 TeV -- so since it was cancelled, this is just playing catchup to that.
I know people like sources for info. The God Particle by Leon Lederman. This is one of the greatest books I've read in a while -- it's written by the director (for 10 years) of Fermilab and he's a Nobel winner - I totally recommend it.
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I live in Canada, and that's definitely the case up here - people are only nervous because they are told to be. Things don't *have* to change forever. I'm not saying that certain things shouldn't change (security, etc.) but I think people just like talking about how the whole national psyche has changed. It hasn't really.
There are a couple of things you must note about particle accelerators. First, when they say 500 GeV (giga electron-volt, linear accelerator - the particles actually collide with an energy of 1000 GeV (or 1 TeV) because the electron (E-) and positron (E+) are accelerated in different directions, each with a potential of 500 GeV. Note that in a collision, the full 1 TeV is available for use in creating new particles. In a "stationary-target" experiment (such as ramming a proton into a stationary proton target), only about 10% of the acceleration energy is available for use in creating new particles and probing the depths of the nucleus. Also, when they say "500 GeV", note that the SSC (superconducting super-collider planned for Waxahachie, Texas) was supposed to be 10 TeV -- so since it was cancelled, this is just playing catchup to that. I know people like sources for info. The God Particle by Leon Lederman. This is one of the greatest books I've read in a while -- it's written by the director (for 10 years) of Fermilab and he's a Nobel winner - I totally recommend it.