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The Large Hadron Collider Has Been Recreated In Lego 80

Posted by Soulskill
from the lego-black-hole-soon-to-destroy-earth dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Large Hadron Collider has many fans, and one of its biggest is Sasha Mehlhase, a physicist from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Mehlhase has decided to help promote the LHC to students by taking the time to recreate a 1:50 scale model of it using Lego bricks. In total he spent 81 hours creating it, which was split between 48 hours of designing the model on his laptop, and a further 33 hours putting it together."
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The Large Hadron Collider Has Been Recreated In Lego More

The Large Hadron Collider Has Been Recreated In Lego

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  • Don't tell me... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Tablizer (95088)

    and tomorrow he starts building his girlfriend.

  • Or proved that Beyblades can exceed the speed of light.

  • Not the whole LHC (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, @05:52PM (#38476226)

    The ATLAS module is not the only module on the LHC but yes still impressive.

    • Actually it is the ATLAS Experiment (not module) which is an experiment on the LHC. The LHC actually passes through the middle of the detector.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve (701917)
      Thank you.

      A 1:50 scale model of the LHC would involve a 172 m diameter circle of Legos, hardly something a single person could built in 81 hours.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tsa (15680)

        OK then build it in 82 hours. But seriously, it would be cool to have such a model in Legoland.

        • Ya. I was severely disappointed to see only one detector when I clicked through.

          I wanted the whole doughnut (in a Lego(TM) cave for bonus points!)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mcelrath (8027)
      Don't worry, I'm sure at least 73 CMS, ALICE and LHCb grad students and postdocs are squirreled away right now making Lego models. But I bet they won't make Slashdot. Oh and CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) is very dense, I think one would have to use metal Legos...while plastic probably approximates the density of ATLAS pretty well.

  • Only way to prove the existence.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by formfeed (703859) on Friday December 23, @05:54PM (#38476246)
    .. of the predicted 1x1 block is to let lots of legos collide and look at the resulting blocks.

    • Re:Only way to prove the existence.. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Mitchell314 (1576581) on Friday December 23, @06:15PM (#38476438)
      And research has finally proven that the binding forces from the natural four fields is, in fact, caused by pegs [now known to be bosons] binding to empty sockets [fermions].

      This new finding nicely fits the currently held model that repulsive forces are caused by restraining orders and subatomic-particle on subatomic-particle homophobia. Yet another great day for Science!

  • Correction (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 23, @05:54PM (#38476250)

    It's not the whole LHC - it's the detector part.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Goaway (82658)

      One detector, out of many.

      The original articles explain this, but apparently geek.com isn't quite bright enough to understand all those WORDS.

    • Re:Correction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dogtanian (588974) on Friday December 23, @07:28PM (#38477280) Homepage

      It's not the whole LHC - it's the detector part.

      Was I the only person who read the summary and thought "even at 1:50 scale, that's going to be damn massive" (couldn't remember the exact size, but I knew it was big- having checked, the circumference of the whole thing is 27km, or around 16 miles)?

      Then pretty quickly twigged that they probably hadn't built the whole thing, checked the article, and was right.

    • It's not the whole LHC - it's the detector part.

      It's not even the detector part(s) (there are seven such) - it's *a* detector.

  • Where's the rest of it? (Score:3)

    by The Yuckinator (898499) on Friday December 23, @05:55PM (#38476260)

    I see the ATLAS experiment but where's the room-sized Lego tunnel?

  • so we can all buy this as a kit and have one for ourselves! Very nicely done!

    • Re:Lego, please buy these plans from them... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dan East (318230) on Friday December 23, @06:51PM (#38476884) Homepage Journal

      Considering the legos required to build this model cost $2,600, I doubt Lego would be selling too many of these sets. This also gives a good idea of just how overpriced these little chunks of plastic are.

      • Not sure where that number comes from, but I doubt it's that much. I saw a box of 1600 assorted bricks at Walmart for $40, and this model only hat 9500 bricks. That's only around $240 worth of bricks. Mind you, you might not have the exact bricks you want, but somehow I doubt you would have to spend 10x the amount, since from what I can see none of the bricks are anything special. I wonder if Lego accepts special orders for people taking on big projects. I be they would have sent him some bricks at a good

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Macrat (638047)
          Especially when you can just go to the Lego store and buy the bricks you want by the bag full.

      • Re:Lego, please buy these plans from them... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thetoadwarrior (1268702) on Friday December 23, @09:51PM (#38478450) Homepage
        If it genuinely cost that much it would be due to him buying more sets than he needed to get the appropriate pieces. If Lego made a set that wouldn't be required. They obviously have capability to create the bricks he used already. They'd just have to include the right blocks so I'd get it would be in the $100 to $200 range.

        • It would make more sense for LEGO to bundle the plans with an "expansion pack" and "encourage" people to pay the extra -- less than he did, but more than they currently do.

          Of course, I think LEGO should just go whole hog and recreate the entire collider. Bonus points for a new LEGO-boatswain block ;)

      • Have you checked the prices on Legos lately? Damned expensive, even for kids' sets. Give it another generation and $2,600 will be in the ballpark.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Zargg (1596625)
          hehe yea true, I am astounded at the price of some kids toys these days, for how little they do. I guess I also follow the /. tradition even as a noob, I didn't read the price in the article! However thetoadwarrior is right, if Lego made the set, it wouldn't be that expensive. But still just plastic!

  • If it was that easy to build an atom smasher every kid would be doing it! Oh wait they are, every time they throw something!!! Must crush, mush destroy, must obliterate! Must!!! Muh ha ha!

  • What a jip....I can't see the small pieces...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SEWilco (27983)
      Don't worry, it is designed to make small pieces out of the big pieces until he has some Higgs bricks.

  • Actually it isn't the WHOLE thing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wisebabo (638845) on Friday December 23, @05:56PM (#38476276) Journal

    The pictures in TFA show that he (and his friends and poor wife) show that he just built the detectors.

    While very impressive, he (obviously) didn't build the complete ring. Even at 1:50 scale it would be a mile in circumference. Now that's a lot of LEGOs!

  • One of the more useless lego pieces they have produced.

  • Wrooooooong! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    He recreated ATLAS, which is one of the detectors at the LHC, beside ALICE, CMS, LHCb and further smaller experiments.

  • LHC is 8.6km in diameter. A 1:50 scale model would still be 172 meters in diameter.

    This guy built a 1:50 scale model of the ATLAS detector [wikipedia.org]; the first picture even has the inscriptions "ATLAS" in lego letters.

  • That piece will certainly be a collector's item!

  • Excellent idea in the article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Announcer (816755) on Friday December 23, @06:04PM (#38476350) Homepage

    The author suggests that the Lego company should produce models of real-world scientific devices of all levels of complexity, from simple machines, to Tesla coils, etc, all the way up to this. (No, not WORKING Tesla coils!)

    I think this is an idea that is well worth pursuing. Granted, it probably won't outsell "Star Wars" toys any time soon, but for one thing, the GEEK FACTOR is off the scale! I think there are plenty of kids (and parents too) who would definitely buy such Lego sets! I'd even be interested, myself... and I'm pushing 50!

    • I cannot describe how much of an awesome idea this is.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GNious (953874)

      Greek-appeal, certainly, but I suspect only geeky parents would buy it for their kids - try bringing your child to a Lego store (e.g. in Köln), and see what bits they head for first...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by houghi (78078)

      Who needs sets if you have Lego? I thought the whole point was to use your imagination and use the standard blocks.
      Just like a stick is not a perfect sword, it makes for a great light saber. The same with Lego. Give a kid the standard blocks and it can build anything. Colors don't even matter.

      The building (and destroying) is the fun part. I made people from Lego long before they came pre-build. ull block. On top of that a half block, full one and then a half one. Looked like an upside down F. Sure, it was n

      • I referred to "sets" simply because this is the way Lego has been selling for years, now.

        When I was a kid, all we had were blocks. Even plain ol' wheels were RARE! We made everything from the basic bricks, building, smashing, rebuilding... exactly as you described.

        Now, having helped my nephew build a few Lego "models" (a reasonable description, IMHO) over the years, I also understand the appeal of these custom sets. They have taken the place of the plastic models we had to glue together when we were kids. N

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Roogna (9643)

      It's not far out of whack for some of the sets Lego makes now either. While doing holiday shopping this year for our daughter I was highly impressed by the Architecture sets at the Lego store.

  • The second link's title [universitypost.dk] more accurately describes what was built. I also expected to see a giant LEGO ring but I guess if 1:50 scale is still a little too big to build it out of LEGO, I might let it pass this time.
  • Wow, 81 hours? And more than half of it designing it? And it's not even the whole thing...
    That said, he must have way too much time on his hands.
  • Let me know when they get around to finding the God brick.
  • Bricks have been shat

  • This is valuable research (Score:5, Funny)

    by vk2sky (1463797) on Friday December 23, @07:38PM (#38477370)
    The Higgs Boson is like that oddball tiny LEGO piece that always finds its way down to the bottom of the tub and wedges itself inside another piece.
  • I chuckled a bit to myself when this posting came up in the Yahoo blog reader with a Google ad for steel and aluminium trench-shoring solutions.

  • Logic gates diagram (Score:3)

    by Flammon (4726) on Friday December 23, @08:39PM (#38477870) Homepage Journal

    Bonus points for the logic gates diagram on the whiteboard.

  • Pbbt. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    81 hours for a scale model? Tony Stark built a working particle accelerator in a weekend.

  • who can't get the words Large Hardon Collider out of my mind. Once I thought it I see it every time.

  • Too bad, I would have like to have seen a Lego black hole created.

  • Did he make a tiny air vent for a tiny Lego bird to drop a tiny Lego biscotti down?

Everything is worth precisely as much as a belch, the difference being that a belch is more satisfying. -- Ingmar Bergman