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LHC Success!
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Sep 10, 2008 10:12 AM
from the good-news-everybody dept.
from the good-news-everybody dept.
Tomahawk writes "It worked! The LHC was turned on this morning and has been shown to have worked. Engineers cheered as the proton particles completed their first circuit of the underground ring which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
(And we're all still alive, too!)" Here is a picture from the control room which I'm sure makes sense to someone that isn't me.
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Of course we're still alive... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm correct, no collisions have taken place yet.
Re:Of course we're still alive... (Score:5, Informative)
If I'm correct, no collisions have taken place yet.
Correct. That will happen later this month.
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Re:Of course we're still alive... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you'd think we'd be able to avoid the headline hysteria here at least.
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Re:Of course we're still alive... (Score:5, Insightful)
you'd think we'd be able to avoid the headline hysteria here at least.
You must be new here ;)
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Epic fail (Score:5, Funny)
It started with the scientists, so noone has noticed anything different yet.
BFD (Score:5, Informative)
I thought that the critics of this project were worried about the effects of COLLIDING the particles. Since that hasn't happened yet, this story is a whole lotta nuthin'.
Re:BFD (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean I'll have to build up another sigh of relief and let it out again at a later date?
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Re:BFD (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that the critics of this project were worried about the effects of COLLIDING the particles. Since that hasn't happened yet, this story is a whole lotta nuthin'.
Huh? You do realize that the purpose of building and turning on the LHC isn't to silence black-hole-apocalypse believers, right? The purpose of the LHC is to do new science. Successful containment and acceleration of the beams is an important milestone for this project. That's why this is news.
Presumably you will still think this story is "a whole lotta nuthin'" once collisions do happen, because those collisions will be at energies already probed by other accelerators. And even once LHC ramps up to full power, it will still be "a whole lotta nuthin'" because those energies already occur in nature (e.g. cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere).
I think it would be more accurate to say that the worries about black-hole-apocalypse are "a whole lotta nuthin'" whereas a successful activation of the LHC is amazing news for anyone interested in science.
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Damnit! (Score:5, Funny)
You're all still here.
Realtime LHC Data (Score:5, Funny)
research to application life cycle (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was an undergraduate studying mathematics one of the most intriguing comments made by a professor was
Cutting edge mathematics takes about 50 years to find its way into physics, from there it takes about 25 years to find its way into engineering.
With the advent of the LHC and other amazing advances, like easy access to substantial computing power, do you think that this still holds true? By this, I mean do you think that life cycle times will shorten, or will they remain the same because even though these advances are being made, they are at higher, or very specific level, and as such, they will not be able to be developed into applications as quickly?
Thoughts?
Can we please talk about physics now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one who's sick of every news story and every discussion about the LHC deteriorating into giving the "end of the world" bullshit even more time of day that it doesn't deserve?
This is one of the most important and ambitious scientific experiments that has been attempted in a long long time, but it seems that instead of taking the opportunity to get the general public inspired about science and discovery, the mainstream media has used it to spread unfounded doomsday rumours and anti-science propaganda. The fact that it's dominating even Slashdot discussions (albeit mostly in a joking way) is pretty tragic IMHO.
Prof Brian Cox said it best [telegraph.co.uk] - "anyone who believes the LHC will destroy the world is a twat".
I've taken a huge interest in all this lately and have been spending hours on Wikipedia reading about bosons and leptons and so on.. it would be great to get some quality posts in this thread from some real hardcore particle physicists (come on, I know you're out there...)
Pretty picture, but not the one you want... (Score:5, Informative)
That picture is from smashing the beam into the collimator, not from passing the beam through ATLAS.
This is one of the final tests that you perform before passing the beam through - the result though is that millions of muons from the beam smash and deflect off the collimator, touching off all the different parts of the detectors. That's why you see so many energy deposits (green) throughout ATLAS.
When you're just circulating beams, the only thing you see are Cosmics and BeamHalo - any muons which collide with remaining gas particles upstream of the detector and basically circle right outside of the beam. Here's some pictures of CMS beam halo:
http://cmsdoc.cern.ch/cms/performance/FirstBeam/cms-e-commentary.htm [cmsdoc.cern.ch]
Coincidence? (Score:5, Funny)
Has anyone seen my cat?
Re:More than scientific learning (Score:5, Funny)
It was a triumph, I'm making a note here, huge success!
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Re:More than scientific learning (Score:5, Funny)
Pass the c-
What do you mean all the cake is gone?
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Re:More than scientific learning (Score:5, Funny)
will the doomsayers ever learn for the next time?
Well, they still haven't made the black hole yet. Just wait. When you get sucked in don't come crying to me. I'll be many, many light years away.
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Re:More than scientific learning (Score:5, Funny)
Honestly, my take is this. If the LHC guys really do manage to destroy the universe in some science shattering stranglet experiment, well...
That would be rather impressive. It's just too bad no one would be around to bear witness to the fact. ;-)
Or to put it in the context of Stargate...
Carter: He destroyed a solar system.
Jeannie: MEREDITH!
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Re:More than scientific learning (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:More than scientific learning (Score:5, Funny)
... will the doomsayers ever learn for the next time? Probably not. I'm sure next time they'll say "this time, its different, the world is really going to end this time".
Don't knock the doomsayers man! When they think the world is going to end, they start selling (never understood this? The world is gonna end! My couch for $20! Just in case I need to pay a toll on the way to the afterlife..) or giving away all their stuff! I need a new couch so I hope they get all spooked. If I'm lucky, one will have been a gadget nerd and I can get some computer parts too!
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you can't stop the doomsayers (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when Comet Shoemaker Levy 9 hit Jupiter? There were people saying (and being interviewed on the BBC no less) that pieces of Jupiter would break off and collide with Earth...
The claims of some regarding LHC are no less crazy. What distresses me is the level of coverage these nutbars have had on the news channels. I don't know about you, but I've had several people with non scientific backgrounds who've been scared by this 'news' turn to me for some real world information/reassurance.
When you are dealing with the level of brain dead reasoning that produces such spurious and inaccurate statements about things like the LHC, you can't hope to succeed. Honestly, even if you come up with good reasons, it automatically becomes a cover up to those people, thus excusing even wilder claims.
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Re:you can't stop the doomsayers (Score:5, Interesting)
True true. I know there have been several instances like this before. And it seems like each time something like this comes up, there are people with "strong evidence". I'm just saying that it seems like we don't really learn from history like they say we do.
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Will you ever learn? (Score:5, Funny)
If disaster movies have taught us anything, it is that only when the party is over and everyone is a little tipsy, the problems will arise.
At that point, one lowly scientist (possible of Asian origin) will still be working in his office - despite regular calls of 'Hu! It's all fine, come out here and have some champagne'. He shouts out 'In a minute, I'm just checking something' Then to himself 'This is wrong. This is all wrong. Planck's constant shouldn't be varying like that.'
And then it all goes wrong.
Jeez, were you born yesterday!
Mark my words... come Friday, we'll all be eating black holes for breakfast with lashings of superheated strange milk.
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Re:More than scientific learning (Score:5, Funny)
I thought they had already turned it on yesterday... Wait, today is September 10th... Again ?
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Re:16 bit colour? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because screens with colour used informatively, rather than making eye candy screens with flashy gradients and transparency, make the actual information easier to discern. This isn't some commercial app that has to sell to Mac enthusiasts, nor is it Photoshop.
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