LHC Has First Collisions After Years of Waiting 324
An anonymous reader writes "Only four days after the first attempt to send a particle beam around the LHC, we have arrived at the point when all four experiments got their first real collisions from the machine. This was met by celebrations and champagne, as people have been waiting years and years for this moment. It is a testament to the engineering of the machine that collisions were reached already, so few days after restarting. The LHC had already demonstrated ca 10h stable beams, and now also stable beams in both directions at the same time. In the coming weeks, we need only wait for increased intensity and the first attempts at acceleration."
The real question is... (Score:2)
Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Funny)
...when should we throw our end-of-the-world parties?
Today. I've already maxed out my credit cards and slept with the neighbors wife. I'd imagine he's gonna be pretty ticked off when he finds out but I'm hoping the LHC destroys the planet before he gets home ;)
Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Funny)
A few small points of information for you:
Your neighbor actually won't be ticked off when he finds out. Quite the contrary, he's gonna be highly aroused and in the mood for a wet & messy threesome. He's also extremely well endowed and has been eyeing you for some time already.
So in summary, you're still hoping the LHC destroys the planet before he gets home.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The real question is... (Score:5, Funny)
Read carefully:
It's a HADRON collider.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
The thought of crossing drumsticks makes me hope for the doomsday scenario.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing is special about 2012.. Or are you still working on the really in-accurate assumptions of the Mayan calendar?
2012 has no relevance to anything.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
2012 has no relevance to anything.
It's almost a palindrome. That's gotta mean something.
It's also nearly 13 years after the year 2000, and we all know how unlucky the number 13 is.
Re: (Score:2)
Whenever, if, we find out the universe starts to inflate or something?
Re:The real question is... (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't that what the Windows 7 release parties were for?
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Is the LHC insured for collisions?
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Boy, you sure lepton that joke in a hurry.
Re: (Score:2)
I get a charge out of all this co-motion over the LHC
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
He's strange like that.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Boy, you sure lepton that joke in a hurry.
You're a quarky one, aren't you...
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
woosh!
Its a particle physics thing.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
I could say, I suppose, that if he wants to talk about leptons, you need to give him some SLAC... but I won't.
(typos, on the other hand-- the one where the "r" and the "d" switch order in the word "hadron"-- would be appropriate... but still tasteless.)
Re: (Score:2)
ah yes. just be sure to have safe search on when do a google image search in case of that particular transposition.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Let me guess, as a practical joke you loosen the covalent bonds in the secretaries dress just before the friday staff meeting.
Are you kidding me? That kind of crap is for chemists. We physicists just let our wave functions interact until there is barrier penetration through tunneling. We enforce strict segregation of fermions, but boson-on-boson action is encouraged. As a fermion, I'm usually spin-up when I see their wave functions collapsing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mutter mutter...
Look, everyone, he's discovered dark mutter!
Re: (Score:2)
Yeh, but occasionally they are lynched by rampaging mobs of respectable physicists who dont get invited to that sort of party.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
WRONG!!!
Leptons go PEW PEW not woosh!
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but we all know how to use google, right?
(Besides, some of us did real science degrees)
from the "that's not good" department. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They will be court ordered to attend anger management classes.
Data from first collision through CMS detector (Score:5, Informative)
The beams aren't squeezed right now, just centered. You have a higher probability of collisions when they're squeezed (which will be coming up shortly). It was very cool to be in the control room when the first collision took place =)
Re:Data from first collision through CMS detector (Score:4, Funny)
It was very cool to be in the control room when the first collision took place =)
I have to say, you kept the coffee fresh, even though you forgot to add sweetener to mine.
Re:Data from first collision through CMS detector (Score:5, Funny)
And there is a live video feed available here: http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html [cyriak.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Data from first collision through CMS detector (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
It's funnier with the interesting mod. Mods have a sense of humor too.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Cool picture. My particle physics is a bit rusty, but let's see now... green line distribution seems normal... yellow squiggles there and THERE... hmmm... I see there's more red blocks than blue blocks... ah, yes...
Congratulations, it's a boy!
Re: (Score:2)
Since the world is about to end... (Score:5, Funny)
There's a nice formula to show the world won't end (Score:5, Interesting)
The formula [caltech.edu]: N(>E) = k(E + 1)^-a
N is impacts per second
E is the impact energy in in GeV
k is ~5,000 particles per steradian per square meter per second
a is about 1.6.
So the ground your feet occupy get a dozen or so such collisions per day, and so on.
Banging rocks together... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think what I love most about the LHC and whatnot is that, despite all the incredible and amazing science and technology and innovation and potential for learning behind it, what it really comes down to is just us banging rocks together and watching what happens, just like humans have been doing throughout history. It just happens that this time, the rocks are incredibly tiny and incredibly fast.
Kinda puts it all in perspective, in kind of a cool way, IMO.
Re: (Score:2)
What I love so much about the LHC is that despite all these theories about everything, one may actually get to become proven. Not only that, but we are now kind of like (please do not take this too literaly) reverse enginering our own 'Matrix' so to speak at a level of what, for now at least, seems to be the building blocks, the very foundation, of 'it'*
*Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah... bla bla... Universe, multiverse, whatever...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What I love so much about the LHC is that despite all these theories about everything, one may actually get to become proven.
Aside from the point that we falsify not "prove" theories, there's the point that we may end up with many valid theories explaining the same thing. There need not be only one way to explain the universe, but many equivalent ways.
Re: (Score:2)
There is an endless amount of axioms, so nothing can ever be realy proven, but finding out that some things do not appear to be wrong, by actually testing a theory, isn't so bad for a change. At least not at this level.
But then again we can generalize everything into oblivion...
Re: (Score:2)
On the one hand, I appreciate the parallel and see the coolness potential, on the other, have people really banged rocks throughout history?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Just kick the system and see what it does". Isn't that usually how we start figuring out how stuff works?
In physics, kicking it will tell you what something does.
In compsci, kicking it will tell you what something did.
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard that the secret is to bang the rocks together so I guess we're on the right track.
Re:Banging rocks together... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There's a nice formula to show the world won't (Score:5, Funny)
What about the Poop concentration?
Re: (Score:2)
Crossing the Streams (Score:5, Informative)
Despite all the hoopla, all they've really done is cross the streams.
Today the LHC circulated two beams simultaneously for the first time, allowing the operators to test the synchronization of the beams and giving the experiments their first chance to look for proton-proton collisions. With just one bunch of particles circulating in each direction, the beams can be made to cross in up to two places in the ring. From early in the afternoon, the beams were made to cross at points 1 and 5, home to the ATLAS and CMS detectors, both of which were on the look out for collisions. Later, beams crossed at points 2 and 8, ALICE and LHCb.
An important step, sure. But low-speed collisions and beam tuning are not what the LHC is designed to do. It's akin to a pitcher throwing a few warmup pitches - he won't be bringing the heat til he's out on the mound, he's just trying to make sure he shoulder is fucking healed after he blew it out in his first opening game.
By the end of the year we should have some real info about the first useful collisions.
Re:Crossing the Streams (Score:5, Funny)
It's akin to a pitcher throwing a few warmup pitches...
Huh?
Could you put that into a car analogy?
Re:Crossing the Streams (Score:5, Funny)
Its like a weabo revving the engine of his pimped out ricer at a stoplight. Don't worry, there is a pretty decent chance it will throw a rod when he actually puts it in gear.
Re:Crossing the Streams (Score:5, Funny)
its like the warm up laps at Talledega (NASCAR) before they throw the green flag. You know there is going to be a big collision after the start, you just don't know when and how big. For the End of the World it would be if all 43 cars got wrecked so bad that not one could continue the race. Game over.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Crossing the Streams (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Crossing the Streams (Score:4, Funny)
Could you put that into a car analogy?
Certainly.
A particle bunch in the LHC is presently being handled as though it were a young driver that has recently been issued a provisional drivers license. In the same way that smart parents will provide their new commuters with low power, unexciting vehicles to discourage reckless behaviour, the LHC particles are being denied high levels of energy to prevent any additional unintended excursions.
Just as new drivers suffer a high probability of making mistakes due to inexperience, high energy particles in the LHC are liable to reveal (additional) unknown flaws in the design or construction of the facility. By limiting energy levels the effects of any failures will hopefully be minimal, just as a Volvo 740 wagon that can barely break 60mph due to its 190K miles is less likely to kill you when it slides into a ditch than is a Turbo Carrera disintegrating as it rolls at 210mph.
Note that this analogy fails when one considers that drivers are trained to avoid collision, whereas LHC particles are intended to experience many collisions.
BadAnalogyGuy [slashdot.org] is supposed to be handling these sort of illustrations, but he has been slacking of late.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh?
Could you put that into a car analogy?
It's like driving a new car, you try to vary the speeds and transmission loads for the first couple dozen miles before really letting loose with the throttle and taking it into the red.
High Speed Collisions (Score:3, Informative)
But low-speed collisions and beam tuning are not what the LHC is designed to do.
You do realize that even at the injection energy the speed of the protons is 99.99978% of the speed of light in vacuum and at full energy the speed of the protons has only increased to 99.9999991%? The collisions are both equally high speed thanks to relativity: what is interesting is the collision energy.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering how badly this pitcher blew out his elbow in the season opener, even seeing him warming up again is good. The kid's got a lot of potential.
Leaving the analogy, there's plenty left to do, but this is more than it has ever done before.
Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently the future has given up its battle against the LHC. Take that, Nature!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, we just live in the quantum reality in which they failed. Sucks to be (this version of) us.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but not for long.
IT's not at full power yet! and it can fail with a (Score:2, Insightful)
IT's not at full power yet! and it can fail with a big boom.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You WHAT? (Score:2)
was met by celebrations and champagne
Given the dangers involved and the expenses paid already, I think that was a terrible idea.
Re: (Score:2)
That was... quick (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand all this hoopla about why it took so long. When a new machine is brought into our clean room, it usually takes three months before it runs more or less smoothly. The LHC is a bit bigger than our cleanroom and has many more parts. So much more has to be tested, finetuned, etc. before it can even be brought up after a big repair like it had. I think almost two years is a good time in which to do the repair and all that tweaking.
I other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I heard that two champagne corks collided in mid aid and hit a technician in the eye.
GNOME (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And Fermilab is on board with it (Score:5, Interesting)
First Collisions? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like they should have used a switch instead of a hub. Then there wouldn't be collisions.
Re: (Score:2)
They are just waiting for the token holder to take control of the situation.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, um... I guess you don't know this, but there's this whole part of language called humor. It's kinda a basic part of human behavior.
The wikipedia article is a good start, but there's more info there, and ther
Re: (Score:2)
How well that help with getting collisions? I guess it won't stop collisions like a switch, but I dunno if it'd be good for the type of research being talked about.
Good for them (Score:4, Interesting)
The black holes or universe-ending paradoxes are still a few months off, at least. They are colliding at a paltry 450 GeV, a level we have been able to produce at other colliders for many years. Wake me when they are passing 1 TeV, on their way to 8...
Still record breaking (Score:2)
They are colliding at a paltry 450 GeV, a level we have been able to produce at other colliders for many years.
LHC@Home! (Score:2, Interesting)
I just want to say, you can also contribute your CPU power for LHC calculations, by joining LHC@Home [lhcathome.cern.ch].
I'm in awe of this machine, no other monkey species on this planet has been able to make what those scientists made....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
LHC@home was used during the construction of the collider to test and validate magnet calibration scenarios - that phase was completed over three years ago. LHC@Home is no longer associated with the LHC *or* CERN (beyond website hosting) and has not provided [BOINC] work units for over two years.
Yay, another solid page of black hole jokes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why even bother posting LHC news on /. anymore. It's just top to bottom black hole and collision jokes. The bottom of the barrel has been scraped, and you guys have worked your way through the wood and there is light peeking through on the other side. No funny can escape from this. These are the same jokes that occur every day in the upper atmosphere at much higher humor levels than we can manage. The universe is actively avoiding the discovery of a funny black hole joke, and will mysteriously break any attempts to discover it.
What my parent just said (Score:2)
What he said.
Except with black holes! And hookers! In fact, forget about the collisions...
Re:Yay, another solid page of black hole jokes. (Score:4, Funny)
I know. You'd have to be a really strange person to think this sort of thing is in any way charming. If it were up to me, I'd moderate all of them down.
when does the gift shop open? (Score:3, Funny)
An open letter to Slashdotters. (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, yeah, about that. We're kind of swamped up here with all the new souls looking to get in, so we've decided to fast track certain predominantly Godless groups to eternal damnation. You're now stuck at work.
Forever.
Respectfully yours,
The Archon V2.0
Trainee mortal/immortal liason, New Media Department, Heaven.
So this is the afterlife. (Score:2)
Cross border paperwork (Score:4, Funny)
Where's the kaboom? (Score:3, Funny)
There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Hurp durp two year old video game reference. i get it. you're so funny.
According to xkcd [xkcd.com], he's still three years early.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you do that, then.
I, on the other hand, welcome our new subatomic supplicants.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I for one... (Score:4, Informative)
Do you think, if somehow the sun were turned into a black hole, it would suck in the earth?
How about if we turned a pound of bricks, or a pound of feathers into a black hole with the LHC?
What's that? It would still only have the mass of a pound and not have the gravitational pull to suck 'everything' into it, outside of a radius of ~6.71316708 × 10^-28.
Re:I for one... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I for one... (Score:5, Insightful)
What have logical arguments got to do with scared idiots?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As I learned in driver's education (Score:5, Funny)
we're still two years away from Dec 21st 2012
I applaud your math skills, good sir!