LHC gets colder than deep space

[David]

Story

"The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment has once again become one of the coldest places in the Universe. ..."

This is amazing seeing that Absolute 0 (0K) has never been recorded ... I can't wait till after this year is up as well to see what kind of data is collected. I wonder is creating worm holes or black holes or and endeavor is possible with this research!

[unleashed]

Well, I don't know where would this experiment lead to? I think it is going to be dangerous.

[David]

It may be dangerous but with this experiment not only would it give us information about space but it could also give us insight for new technologies such as worm holes black hole understanding and other strange phenomenons we don't quite fully understand yet.

[unleashed]

But at what cost? What is more important - Earth and it's resources or new technology and information? I see no point in harming ourselves where there is no guarantee of life in the outer space!

[David]

I think there is life out there and I think we should harness it...

We can do both and I think this research could someday somehow help us in doing so ...

What if... this reseach could show us a way to us a wormhole to extinguish all of our waste globally into deep space?

[orten999]

The Large Hadron Collider has tripled the amount of energy it usually creates, with CERN announcing 3.5 trillion electron volts have passed through the machine's tunnels.


Term Papers

[amonialogin]

There have been a whole heap of threads here recently about the LHC mostly containing the same questions, jokes and misconceptions. At this stage I reckon it is a good idea to make a megathread to keep it all in one place. I'll update this thread with information as I get it, and will answer any questions people have if I can. I'm sure there are one or two other physics goons here who can help me out in this too.


I'll lay a few ground rules first if I can, and offer a disclaimer: I'd like to keep this thread free of trolling and physics penis-waving if at all possible. I'm an experimental particle physicist rather than a theorist, so I want to avoid heavily theoretical discussions where I can- if people want to discuss theory A/T is probably a better place for it. I encourage theorists to correct me and others where we are wrong, but pedantism will detract from helping non-physics goons understanding.

I'll start by giving a brief FAQ based on the more common questions/misconceptions I've heard so far.

What is the LHC?

The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator situated at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). It is not an experiment, more of a laboratory- many different experiments will be performed with it. The LHC is a pair of enormous rings called beampipes, 27km in circumference, into which we inject protons, and speed them up to ridiculously high speeds- almost the speed of light.download software



Protons are nothing special, they make up a significant portion of the contents of our bodies, and all the material we see around us. Contained within the nucleus of atoms alongside neutrons, they are about 1000 times heavier than the electron. The protons we inject into the LHC are like the blast from a shotgun, rather than a stream of single protons, we inject 'bunches', containing 100,000,000,000 protons in a beam the thickness of a human hair. There are 2808 of these bunches in the machine at any instant, and they will travel around the rings in opposite directions completing a lap of the machine 11000 times per second.





The LHC itself isn't much to look at. It consists of a lot (1232) of shiny blue tubes about the diameter of a car tyre attached end to end around the ring, situated 100m or so beneath the borders of France and Switzerland. These are the superconducting dipoles, which is a fancy name for what is essentially a big magnet. Inside these blue tubes are the beampipes, sitting side by side and surrounded by liquid helium and superconductor. The superconductor needs to be kept cold to operate, and holds an enormous electric current creating a strong magnetic field. This field is what holds our protons inside the accelerator. As the protons travel around the ring they get flung outwards like a kid on a playground roundabout. The magnets provide the nudge needed to stop the protons flying out from the ring in a straight line and burning a hole in the side of the beampipe.

At four different locations on the LHC are 'interaction points' where we bend these two beams together much like the crossovers you see on toy car racetracks. At these interaction points the two beams collide smashing individual protons together unleashing vast amounts of energy in a very small space. This is where we hope to witness some things humankind has never before seen....

The Experiments of the LHC

There are four main experiments, one at each interaction point. These are the real beasts which everyone has probably seen photos of by now. What the hell though, I'll throw in some more.

ATLAS