you might have noticed the strange looking machine-picture on google's homepage today?......
from the washigton post....
MEYRIN, Switzerland -- It is the biggest machine ever built. Everyone says it looks like a
movie set for a corny James Bond villain. They are correct. The machine is attended by
brainiacs wearing hard hats and running around on catwalks. They are looking for the
answer to the question: Where does everything in the universe come from? Price tag: $8
billion plus.
The world's largest particle accelerator is buried deep in the earth beneath herds of placid
dairy cows grazing on the Swiss-French border. The thing has been under construction for
years, like the pyramids. Its centerpiece is a circular 17-mile tunnel that contains a pipe
swaddled in supermagnets refrigerated to crazy-low temperatures, colder than deep space.
The idea is to set two beams of protons traveling in opposite directions around the tunnel,
redlining at the speed of light, generating wicked energy that will mimic the cataclysmic
conditions at the beginning of time, then smashing into each other in a furious re-creation of
the Big Bang -- this time recorded by giant digital cameras.
On Wednesday, they fired this sucker up.
It will be months before the proton beams reach full power and produce the kinds of exotic
collisions that may herald an age of "new physics." But if the machine works -- this most
ambitious, expensive, technologically advanced civilian scientific experiment in history -- it
would be a happening for humanity.
"I think we may have to rewrite our textbooks," said Fabiola Gianotti, a project leader for
ATLAS, one of the four huge detectors that will record and analyze the collisions. "There
must be something more than we have seen. There is something missing from the puzzle."
The Large Hadron Collider, as it is called by the 8,000 scientists, engineers and technicians
from 85 countries who dote on it, will probe the most fundamental mysteries. From the
fireballs, there might spring forth black holes and the elusive thing that gives matter its mass.
Or not! There might be particles called "strangelets" and evidence of "dark matter" and signs
of "supersymmetry" and maybe a little antimatter.
Oh, and they might find some extra dimensions. But this is the delicious part. They. Don't.
Exactly. Know.
****************************************************
This is a big deal people!! ..........i wanted to post this with an event chart for the startup of the collider so as to maybe get some insight into the life of this thing. It is at once scary and exciting, and like with so many of mankind's endeavors, there is the tendency to mistakes. The unknownnnnn
As for the time for the chart:
This article says:
"Just after 0730 GMT, a first proton beam was injected into the Large Hadron Collider (LHV), "
Wikipedia's update says this:
"The first beam was circulated through the collider on the morning of 10 September 2008.[17] CERN successfully fired the protons around the tunnel in stages, three kilometres at a time. The particles were fired in a clockwise direction into the accelerator and successfully steered around it at 10:28 am local time"
I'm not really sure which time to use, and wasnt sure what "7:30" gmt is for geneva ....
Here is a chart for 10:28 local time as cited from wiki...
If anyone has any insight, i would love to hear it
EDITED TO ADD THAT THIS CHART IS NOT THE INTIAL START UP TIME FOR THE COLLIDER..THIS IS THE 'COMPLETED CIRCUIT' ONE...
tHE INITIAL STARTUP TIME CHART IS A FEW POSTS DOWN
from the washigton post....
MEYRIN, Switzerland -- It is the biggest machine ever built. Everyone says it looks like a
movie set for a corny James Bond villain. They are correct. The machine is attended by
brainiacs wearing hard hats and running around on catwalks. They are looking for the
answer to the question: Where does everything in the universe come from? Price tag: $8
billion plus.
The world's largest particle accelerator is buried deep in the earth beneath herds of placid
dairy cows grazing on the Swiss-French border. The thing has been under construction for
years, like the pyramids. Its centerpiece is a circular 17-mile tunnel that contains a pipe
swaddled in supermagnets refrigerated to crazy-low temperatures, colder than deep space.
The idea is to set two beams of protons traveling in opposite directions around the tunnel,
redlining at the speed of light, generating wicked energy that will mimic the cataclysmic
conditions at the beginning of time, then smashing into each other in a furious re-creation of
the Big Bang -- this time recorded by giant digital cameras.
On Wednesday, they fired this sucker up.
It will be months before the proton beams reach full power and produce the kinds of exotic
collisions that may herald an age of "new physics." But if the machine works -- this most
ambitious, expensive, technologically advanced civilian scientific experiment in history -- it
would be a happening for humanity.
"I think we may have to rewrite our textbooks," said Fabiola Gianotti, a project leader for
ATLAS, one of the four huge detectors that will record and analyze the collisions. "There
must be something more than we have seen. There is something missing from the puzzle."
The Large Hadron Collider, as it is called by the 8,000 scientists, engineers and technicians
from 85 countries who dote on it, will probe the most fundamental mysteries. From the
fireballs, there might spring forth black holes and the elusive thing that gives matter its mass.
Or not! There might be particles called "strangelets" and evidence of "dark matter" and signs
of "supersymmetry" and maybe a little antimatter.
Oh, and they might find some extra dimensions. But this is the delicious part. They. Don't.
Exactly. Know.
****************************************************
This is a big deal people!! ..........i wanted to post this with an event chart for the startup of the collider so as to maybe get some insight into the life of this thing. It is at once scary and exciting, and like with so many of mankind's endeavors, there is the tendency to mistakes. The unknownnnnn
As for the time for the chart:
This article says:
"Just after 0730 GMT, a first proton beam was injected into the Large Hadron Collider (LHV), "
Wikipedia's update says this:
"The first beam was circulated through the collider on the morning of 10 September 2008.[17] CERN successfully fired the protons around the tunnel in stages, three kilometres at a time. The particles were fired in a clockwise direction into the accelerator and successfully steered around it at 10:28 am local time"
I'm not really sure which time to use, and wasnt sure what "7:30" gmt is for geneva ....
Here is a chart for 10:28 local time as cited from wiki...
If anyone has any insight, i would love to hear it
EDITED TO ADD THAT THIS CHART IS NOT THE INTIAL START UP TIME FOR THE COLLIDER..THIS IS THE 'COMPLETED CIRCUIT' ONE...
tHE INITIAL STARTUP TIME CHART IS A FEW POSTS DOWN
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