CERN's Hydron Collider

Azza · 8 Dec 2007 at 02:05

Jokester said:
Is this the machine that will hopefully find the Higgs Boson (or not!)?

Jokester

Sure is.

Ruddy talked about this for so many lessons in Physics.

jak731 · 8 Dec 2007 at 02:14

only physicist can justify spending millions on a machine to fine a particle :rolleyes:

i'm personally looking forward to when the LHC is fully operational, that is if it doesnt kill us all.

Energize · 8 Dec 2007 at 02:23

It's more worthwhile than most things money is poured into.

jak731 · 8 Dec 2007 at 02:29

thats true, lets hope they find something or find out what they are looking for does not exist

yer_averagejoe · 8 Dec 2007 at 02:33

I know someone working on the data analysis side of things and its going to be a very long time until some conclusive results appear.

Energize · 8 Dec 2007 at 02:43

jak731 said:
thats true, lets hope they find something or find out what they are looking for does not exist

Problem is if they don't find the higgs boson, theorists will tell you that the collision didn't have enough energy to form one and we won't be any better off.

something_totally_different · 8 Dec 2007 at 02:55

-|ScottFree|- said:
Cern's Hydron Collider was to be tested November 26 2007. I cannot find any news on the net as to whether Cern have put the Atom Smasher to work...

Has anyone heard of information regarding this project. Did they start tests or has the project run into trouble?

is this that bloody great thing they want to make mini black wholes with ?

Inquisitor · 8 Dec 2007 at 03:29

AcidHell2 said:
more delays by the look of things

The LHC’s superconducting main magnets will operate at a temperature of just 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (–271.3°C), colder than outer space.

Click to expand...

That's a little misleading; outer space is actually about 100,000°C

(not that ambient temperature has that much meaning in space)

cuppy tea · 8 Dec 2007 at 03:33

-|ScottFree|- said:
Cern's Hydron Collider was to be tested November 26 2007. I cannot find any news on the net as to whether Cern have put the Atom Smasher to work...

Has anyone heard of information regarding this project. Did they start tests or has the project run into trouble?

I would like to know the same thing. Sounds pretty neat!

Energize · 8 Dec 2007 at 04:03

The magnets failed pressure testing and have to be reinforced, so it won't start until may.

Killa_ken · 8 Dec 2007 at 04:40

dafloppyone said:
ahhh I remember now tis the threshhold

Sucked into a microscopic black hole

You will need: a microscopic black hole. Note that black holes are not eternal, they evaporate due to Hawking radiation. For your average black hole this takes an unimaginable amount of time, but for really small ones it could happen almost instantaneously, as evaporation time is dependent on mass. Therefore you microscopic black hole must have greater than a certain threshold mass, roughly equal to the mass of Mount Everest. Creating a microscopic black hole is tricky, since one needs a reasonable amount of neutronium, but may possibly be achievable by jamming large numbers of atomic nuclei together until they stick. This is left as an exercise to the reader.
Method: simply place your black hole on the surface of the Earth and wait. Black holes are of such high density that they pass through ordinary matter like a stone through the air. The black hole will plummet through the ground, eating its way to the center of the Earth and all the way through to the other side: then, it'll oscillate back, over and over like a matter-absorbing pendulum. Eventually it will come to rest at the core, having absorbed enough matter to slow it down. Then you just need to wait, while it sits and consumes matter until the whole Earth is gone.
Highly, highly unlikely. But not impossible.
Earth's final resting place: a singularity of almost zero size, which will then proceed to happily orbit the Sun as normal.
Source: "The Dark Side Of The Sun," by Terry Pratchett. It is true that the microscopic black hole idea is an age-old science fiction mainstay which predates Pratchett by a long time, he was my original source for the idea, so that's what I'm putting.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/destroy_earth_mp-1.html

So I might die because a bunch of those geeks want to find some little bits of air.....time to start bashing some heads in :cool:

Azagoth · 8 Dec 2007 at 04:46

Energize, are you working at CERN? If so, is there any chance of some hi-res photos of the installation? The closest I've ever got is flying over at 2500' in a Bell.

Runbalk · 8 Dec 2007 at 06:26

I'm no physicist, but I don't see how they could make a black hole with the same mass as everest by smashing two tiny particles together... And besides, wouldn't any black hole they create have such a small mass it wouldn't suck anything in? Also, particles collide with the Earth's atmosphere all the time, so I would be FAR more concerned about that.

Memphis · 8 Dec 2007 at 10:24

Azagoth said:
Energize, are you working at CERN?

Good god I hope not :eek:

.

Zip · 8 Dec 2007 at 10:41

Killa_ken said:
So I might die because a bunch of those geeks want to find some little bits of air.....time to start bashing some heads in

Last time i said that i got lots ofn Abuse for "Not knowing much about physics behind it" Or some **** like that.

But anyway, Who gives a flying **** about what they want to spend lots of cash on and find. Damm Nerds will be the end of us all!

It might take 2 of us to take down Hawking though, Ive heard hes a bit of Keyboard warrior

I feel so dirty for saying that last bit for some reason

MHayes · 8 Dec 2007 at 10:53

???

People should be more supportive of this stuff. Everyone loves to use hi tech gagets but someone who is many times smarter than you has discovered how they work. These are the only people that actually will change the world. Geeks ***.

BlackDragon · 8 Dec 2007 at 11:05

People are being quite immature here.

But yes, we should be more supportive of these scientists. These guys are the ones who will be making huge breakthroughs that change the world

Zip · 8 Dec 2007 at 11:10

BlackDragon said:
People are being quite immature here.

But yes, we should be more supportive of these scientists. These guys are the ones who will be making huge breakthroughs that change the world

How exactly will this change the world anyway? :confused:

The money should have been pumped into Stem Cell Research TBH

blik · 8 Dec 2007 at 11:20

Interesting thread, is there any chance of cake instead of black holes though?

Tefal · 8 Dec 2007 at 11:33

Zip said:
How exactly will this change the world anyway?

Possibly in the same way that finding an electron can act as a wave as well as a partial, without that little piece of obscure knowledge the transistor would never have been created.