Accelerated particles: Housed in a 27-kilometre-circumference tunnel under the French-Swiss border, the LHC is expected to be up and running by July or August.
Credit: CERN
GENEVA: The world's biggest atom-smasher, now close to completion at the CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) laboratory near Geneva, is a study in big numbers:
- The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will whiz protons to 99.9999 per cent of the speed of light in two parallel beams in a ring-shaped tunnel, 27 kilometres (16.9 miles) long and up to 175 metres (568 feet) below the ground. The tunnel straddles the French-Swiss border.
- In top gear, the LHC will generate nearly a billion collisions per second. Above ground, a farm of 3,000 computers, will rapidly crunch this number down to about 100 collisions that are of the most interest. The data will then be sent out to a grid of institutions and universities around the world for analysis – a sort of mini-World Wide Web of its own.
- The tunnel is the world's largest fridge, with parts reaching a temperature as low as -271ºC, which is colder than deep space.
- The detectors are Herculean in scale. The biggest, called ATLAS, is 46 metres long and 25 metres high, or about half the size of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. At 7,000 tonnes, ATLAS weighs almost as much as the Eiffel Tower, and has 3,000 km of cabling. Nearly 300,000 tonnes of rock were dug to house ATLAS and 50,000 tonnes of concrete were poured. In one year, ATLAS will generate 3,200 terabytes of raw data, equivalent to 160 times the three billion books in the U.S. Library of Congress.
- In the course of a 10-hour experiment, a beam might travel more than 10 billion kilometres, enough to get to Neptune and back. At full intensity, each beam will have the equivalent energy of a car travelling at 1,600 km/h. The LHC will use up 120 megawatts of power, equal to all the households in the Geneva area.
- LHC collisions will generate 14 teraelectronvolts (TeV), amounting to a high concentration of energy but only at an extraordinarily tiny scale. One TeV is the equivalent energy of motion of a flying mosquito.
- Some physicists have wondered whether the LHC will produce minute black holes and nasty (but so far entirely theoretical) phenomena called strangelets that would reduce Earth to a lump of hot, strange matter. CERN says any black holes would be so weak that they could not exert sufficient gravitational force to pull in surrounding matter. As for strangelets, CERN points out that Earth is battered by cosmic rays of much higher energy intensities, but the planet is still here.
- The price tag for building the LHC is put at 6.03 billion Swiss francs (A$6.5 billion), two-thirds of which went into materials and a third into paying for an army of thousands of physicists, engineers and technicians to design and install it.
they did get laid,..but only after being paid for the project :D
and the human being should be a protector of the earth.I understand accepting the risk when there is an emergency situation with no other way to be solved ,yes you take the risk.But you don't play russian rullette with the earth which is infinite times more important then the scientist's diploma and whatever they want to prove.what can you discover that is more important then life itself?who are they to take the risk for the entire humanity,born and unborn?AND WHY DO WE LET THEM?
WHAT?
My gosh, no wonder the world is in the state it is.
The "HIGGS" Boson, a/k/a The "God Particle" is exactly what CERN is trying to isolate. They will be working to create mini big bangs.
THIS CERN venture could spell disaster for the whole of the UNIVERSE and is not a playing, speculating matter. THERE is substantial risk involved in this endeavor of CERN's and everyone on this planet should be aware of it.
"The "STRING THEORY" or the "THEORY OF EVERYTHING" ("TOE")needs no proof outside of the "M" THEORY! STRINGS have been proved. M Theory validates and explains the String Theory as well as the "Singularity" or better known as the "BIG BANG," thus we now have CERN using those very theories in trying to isolate the HIGGS BOSON!
If you do not know what you are posting about PLEASE DO NOT SPECULATE. I can tell none of YOU have done more than surf the web, barely reading the materials or researching the sited information. IT SEEMS YOU all have done nothing but look at pictures as you go along.
lols
string theory has not been proved. if it had been proved they would already have the "TOE". string theory is improbable there are other theories out there that are more logical then string theory. all string theory is, is a bunch of people trying to come up with an answer same with religion. they cant even come up with logical reasons why string theory would work.
LOL
Its so fully to read what people who have but a tiny amount the knowledge of the subject post on it.
Yes, CERN is trying to 'prove' the Higgs Boson
No, there really is NO substantial risk.
Strings have been proven... My ass! Strings are as hypothetical as they could possibly be. Unless of course you and your fragile little mind could perceive 10 dimensions. Let alone the 12 others added by super-string theory.
You are one hell of a speculator.
"No, there really is NO
"No, there really is NO substantial risk."
do explain the non-risk of black holes.
u can't
a black hole has one of the biggest densities in the universe, and it's gravity force it is big therefore can suck in a small rock it's size,and most of the theories say they expand after this.those scientists play with a theory and they are speculators also.like you.like many others but you don't like the word because you like to think of your-self as being all-knowing.
and i bet you don't wanna see how fragile your body will be when a tiny black hole will meet MATTER
Well...
If the world IS unmade, it will happen pretty quickly. Pretty hard to wrap 'God' around man making the mistake that will end everything. ;)
Anyway, there isn't sufficient time nor matter within the vacuous accelerator to nurture a black hole into being. As for the other 'Happy Accidents' that could occur (read: mistakes, ie. strangelets,) there are far worse things which we do to our earth, and each OTHER, everyday, and not in the name of science or progress.
Anyway, if you have faith in God, you shouldn't have anything to worry about, right? The end has been determined in your eyes. If you don't have faith, or this makes you question the end times (or try to rationalize them.. hopefully not,) just remember: we have to die eventually, it's the fate of all 'life'... and maybe that which comes after us will do a better job. :P~
-B.
There's a line from the musical Avenue Q that works here: "If baby bird gets pushed from nest and flies away, good for baby! If baby bird no fly, and hit head on rock, and get eaten by cat, then he learn to do better next time!"
LHC
If the "strangelets" do consume everything, you have to wonder, is this the first time? This may have been tried before, not like we'd have record of it :P.
Out of curiosity, how do they know this all-consuming phenomenon exists? Seems like if it was a world-ending event that it'd be another unproven idea.
Jason
I used to think that atheists only bickered on religious websites... But now I can see that it's simply what they do! Thank you stumbleupon!
Interesting...
"I used to think that atheists only bickered on religious websites..." is an interesting comment to make, since most of the "bickering" seems to be about definitions and whether or not strings and membranes are facts, fiction or hypothesis (read: testable phenomena) and not about God, deities or any of the other philosophical arguments atheism would entail. I don't know if you believe in a deity or not, but, point of fact: theists argue too, and on all manner of forums, not just websites and when the religious argue, people sometimes try to prove their point at the end of gun or sword point or with threats of eternal damnation in Hell.
Back to the topic: would a physicist correct me if I'm wrong? I thought M-theory was an extension of string theory to make the mathematics work. I also thought strings and membranes while proved mathematically are still hypothetical constructs because they haven't been directly observed. I obviously have a weak, "National Geographic Channel" understanding of this so please help an ignorant out!!!
-Ruhal Hazim
WTF
OH MY LIFE!! If this is the way physicists of the 21st century 'discuss' their opinions/theorys (Yes I used the 't' word) then there isnt much hope for the world really is there?! I came across this page when seeing what I can find out about this LHC, and am dissapointed to see that some of the (potentially) best brains of our time are arguing the toss over wether religion or science rules, And what the definition of a theory is and also wether or not strings exist. Unfortunately it seems that until it can be proved there will always be people on the net arguing about it rather than getting of their fat arses and doing something towards finding out what the 'truth' is. I am just an ordinary 22 yr old lady living in the UK, That didnt go to Uni, and has a boring 9-5 job, but am one thats fascinated by Physics and everything that is happening in the world of physics, but its sites/people like this that are making me question the amount of time I spend studying this and wonder if there is something that doesnt involve egotistical idiots wasting there time, as I believe I now have by taking the time to write this.