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Science

German Lab to Host International Linear Collider 15

Posted by michael from the don't-look-at-beam-with-remaining-eye dept.
jabberjaw writes "Physicsweb is reporting that Germany's DESY lab has been chosen as the host of the International Linear Collider. Built at an estimated $5bn the ILC will utilizes supeconducting cavities operating at 2 Kelvin rather then the more conventional X-Band accelerators outlined by the US team at Stanford and the Japanese team at KEK. After the ILC's expected completion in 2010 the 30km long lab will have the ability to accelerate electrons and positrons at energies up to 1 TeV."
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German Lab to Host International Linear Collider More

German Lab to Host International Linear Collider

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  • Super Monkey Collider Loses Funding (Score:3, Funny)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Friday August 20, 2004 @04:02PM (#10027520) Homepage Journal
    from The Onion [theonion.com]:

    Congress voted Monday to cut federal funding for the superconducting monkey collider, a controversial experiment which has cost taxpayers an estimated $7.6 billion a year since its creation in 1983.

    The collider, which was to be built within a 45-mile-long circular tunnel, would accelerate monkeys to near-light speeds before smashing them together. Scientists insist the collider is an important step toward understanding the universe, because no one can yet say for certain what kind of noises monkeys would make if collided at those high speeds.

    "It could be a thump, a splat, or maybe even a sound that hasn't yet been heard by human ears," said project head Dr. Eric Reed Friday, in an impassioned plea to Congress. "How are we supposed to understand things like the atom or the nature of gravity if we don't even know what colliding monkeys sound like?"

    But Congress, under heavy pressure from the powerful monkey rights lobby, decided that money being spent on the monkey collider would be put to better use in other areas of government. Now, with funding cut off, the future of our nation's monkey collision program looks bleak.

    Congress began funding the monkey collider in 1983, after Reed convinced lawmakers that the U.S. was lagging behind the Soviet Union in monkey-colliding technology. Funds were quickly allocated so that Reed could spend a week procuring monkeys on Florida's beautiful Captiva Island. Though Reed returned with a great tan and a beautiful young fiancee, he reported that there were no monkeys to be found on the sunny Gulf Coast island. Congress funded subsequent trips to the Cayman Islands, Bora Bora and Cancun, but these searches also yielded negative results.

    Two years passed without a single monkey being procured, and Congress was close to cutting the project's funding. It was then that Reed got the idea to utilize monkeys already being bred in captivity. The Congressional Subcommittee for Scientific Investigation was enthralled by the idea of watching caged monkeys copulate, and increased funding by 40 percent.

    With a steady supply of monkeys ensured, construction of the monkey collider began on a scenic Colorado site. Despite environmental pressure, a mountain was levelled to facilitate construction of the seven-mile-wide complex. Huge underground tunnels were dug, at a cost of billions of dollars and 17 lives. Money left over was used to build resort homes, spas and video arcades for Reed, his colleagues and several Congressmen.

    Construction of the collider's acceleration mechanism was delayed for years, as scientists couldn't decide how to get the monkeys up to smashing speed. Last month, it was finally decided that the collider would employ a system in which the monkeys run through the tunnels chasing holographic projections of bananas. "Monkeys love bananas," Reed said, "and they're willing to run extremely fast to get them."

    But now it seems the acceleration mechanism may never be built. With the monkey collider placed on indefinite hold, the huge research facility in Colorado lies dormant. To keep the space from going to waste, Congress Monday voted to convert the empty underground tunnel into a federally funded drag-racing track. The track is expected to create hundreds of jobs in the form of pit crews and concessions workers, and will allow President Clinton to impress important foreign dignitaries with America's wheelie technology.

    Despite this promising alternate plan, most involved with the monkey collider project feel the sudden cuts in funding are inexcusable. "It is a travesty of science," Reed said. "I remember the joy I felt in college when I would launch monkeys at one another with big rubber bands, and this project would have been even more enlightening."
  • Just think what the overclockers could do with THAT heat sink.

  • I just hope they don't attempt to find the mass of the Higgs-Bosun particle and collapse this type 13 planet into a super dense particule the size of a pea.

    • I just hope they don't attempt to find the mass of the Higgs-Bosun particle and collapse this type 13 planet into a super dense particule the size of a pea. First of all, if the planet was collapsed to the size of a pea, it wouldn't be a particle, it would be a black hole :). Second of all, what you're thinking of is the strange matter fallacy, in which certain high-energy experiments could create strange matter, which could turn all the matter in the earth into, well, more strange matter. Turns out th

  • Article submitter didn't RTFA - typical. (Score:5, Informative)

    by trixillion ( 66374 ) on Friday August 20, 2004 @05:54PM (#10028520)
    abberjaw writes, "Physicsweb is reporting that Germany's DESY lab has been chosen as the host of the International Linear Collider."

    physicsweb writes, "Particle physicists have chosen to base the proposed International Linear Collider on superconducting technology developed by an international collaboration centred on the DESY lab in Germany. The superconducting approach was chosen by an international panel ahead of a rival technology developed at Stanford in the US and the KEK lab in Japan."

    Looks like abberjaw only read the title but not the first sentence of the article. In fact, site selection has not been made. abberjaw may confirm that this is so by looking at the second sentence of DESY's related press release [www.desy.de]; hopefully abberjaw can muster the patience to read that far this time. DESY would like to host the ILC and certainly this helps their chances.
    • No disrepect is intended by the bad copy and paste.

      With some sense of irony, I note that, where I have written 'abberjaw' I have meant 'jabberjaw'.
    • From the article: "Now that the ITRP has made its decision, particle physicists plan to carry out three more years of R&D and hope to complete an engineering design for the ILC by 2010. Construction of the collider could then begin, assuming that funding agencies and politicians can agree on where to build the machine." Interesting, too, how they assume the LHC is going to find the Higgs boson - that's a pretty big assumption, I would think.
      • I think the groups have basically been divided on that issue. There are some who have been around for a while who don't expect much confirmation of any of these newer ideas. There are others who have been developing these ideas (like string theorists) who think that within a few months of operation, the LHC will have confirmed numerous predictions (Higgs boson, extra dimensions, super-symmetry, etc).

        In any case, I think everyone is in agreement that the LHC is likely going to find something new/unexpec
        • The Higgs Boson is a critical part of Quantum Mechanics--if the entire mass range is searched (which, while LHC isn't searching all of it, many future colliders will finish the range), and the boson is not found, the basic foundation of quantum mechanics will have to be questioned, as the way that the theorists made the theory work originally was to introduce the hypothetical Higgs field. This solved the mathematical inconsistancies and made the theory work. But if the boson isn't found...
          • The Higgs Boson is a critical part of Quantum Mechanics

            No. The Higgs is a critical part of the Standard Model, that is, the best current theory of particle physics. It's not a part of the basic theory of quantum mechanics at all. If the Higgs is not found, that'll mean trouble for the Standard Model but not at all for quantum mechanics.

            and the boson is not found, the basic foundation of quantum mechanics will have to be questioned,

            Again, no. Finding or not finding the Higgs will not say anything at

            • Certainly it would be a strong disappointment if confirmation of the Higgs field was not found - but it is possible.

              Like you said, the Higgs is associated more with the standard model (as well theories in inflationary cosmology) than it is with Quantum Mechanics.

              Though, if the Higgs is not found at the LHC, then there will probably be only a few possible reactions:
              1) we need more energy
              2) it doesn't exist
              3) keep looking!!!!

              I'd imagine a large number of researchers will decide it's #1, but convincing the

      • Higgs Boson (Score:3, Interesting)

        by jpflip ( 670957 )
        One thing people forget about the Higgs boson is that it doesn't necessarily need to be there, at least not in its usually-understood form. In the electroweak theory, there is a symmetry of nature which makes the electromagnetic and weak forces look the same at high energies (i.e. in the early universe when things were very hot). At low energies, this symmetry is "broken", and so the two forces look different. Its sort of like a ball perched at the top of a perfectly symmetrical hill - when the ball stay
    • As a side note, if the US ever manages to have the ILC built here (after the royal screwing that came with the canceling of the collider in Texas), one of the suggested places for where specifically is right along I-88 in Illinois, stretching from roughly Dekalb to approx where Fermilab is now. Apparently there is a small section of land on the side of the highway where I believe some kind of line (perhaps electric) runs, and therefore, no one builds on it. However, since the ILC would be underground anyw

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