CERN Releases LHC Data

An anonymous reader writes: Ever wished you had access to CERN's LHC data to help with your backyard high-energy physics research? Today you're in luck. CERN has launched its Open Data Portal, which makes experimental data produced by the Large Hadron Collider open to the public. "The first high-level and analyzable collision data openly released come from the CMS experiment and were originally collected in 2010 during the first LHC run. This data set is now publicly available on the CERN Open Data Portal. Open source software to read and analyze the data is also available, together with the corresponding documentation. The CMS collaboration is committed to releasing its data three years after collection, after they have been thoroughly studied by the collaboration." You can read more about CERN's commitment to "Open Science" here.

hmmmm

[ganjadude]

I wonder what people will do with this data or what can be learned from it?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people just love data:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj-qBUWOYfE

I haven't looked at it but I wonder if these results have already been filtered in some way. Is the code also available for that?

Re:

[hcs_$reboot]

I wonder what people will do with this data or what can be learned from it?

Don't worry, countries that are not a member of CERN [web.cern.ch], and other dictatorships, will be interested.

Re:hmmmm

[DerekLyons]

Unless they're particle physicists with a bunch of computer power at their disposal... not much beyond bumping fists and shouting *information wants to be frrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee!*.

Seriously, even though it's only useful to a limited number of people, it's still cool.

Probably Not a Lot

[Roger W Moore]

What you are getting is the reconstructed data. To be able to do anything scientifically valuable with it you have to understand the intricate details of the reconstruction software, the trigger, the calibration etc. etc. To be honest I would be amazed if anyone outside CMS will be able to do much with it at all. I'd also expect that there will be bandwidth restrictions on accessing the data since the dataset is multi-PB (if it is the full set of run I data).

We did a similar exercise with the D0 experiment at Fermilab several years ago and it was of interest to practically nobody. I expect there may be somewhat more interest with this being the LHC data but I'd be surprised if anything useful comes of it given the massive amount of work required to be able to do a useful analysis. The best I can think of is that this might make a really nice undergraduate course project or, with some pre-written, high level analysis code, perhaps even as outreach for high school students.

Re:

[buchner.johannes]

You could filter out all the Higgs events and make them into a artsy OpenGL visualisation or use them in a audio piano piece.
Like here, magnetic field observations has been converted to audio: https://soundcloud.com/esaops/... [soundcloud.com]

Looking closely

[i kan reed]

You can see the exact moment the earth was destroyed by a black hole.

Re:

[Em Adespoton]

You could also spend hours of fun playing "Where's Higgs Boson?"

Re:

[pr0fessor]

He's the one in the hat... oh wait, that's Waldo.

Nuclear weapons?

[mi]

Can the availability of these data help me — or Iran — develop a nuclear weapon faster?

Re:

[mi]

Your jump to that logic tells us volumes about you.

So, instead of answering "yes it may" or "not, it is unlikely", you make it about my person? Wow...

Re:

[Jeff Flanagan]

It's because your posting history and bizarre sig indicate that you're a terrified wingnut. When someone's personality is the problem as much as their ignorance, just giving an answer isn't as helpful to their potential development into a rational person as mockery is. Something has to get you back on track.

Re:

[pr0fessor]

My younger brother joined Mensa while in college... he likes to make fun of them. He is the kind of guy that will pose the dumbest thing he can think of in the most intelligent manner just to see how many people will take it seriously... I've seen him make professors and high school teachers doubt they knew what the subjects they were teaching. I know that is kind of jerk thing to do but it is so funny.

Re:

[jandrese]

This would be more for if they wanted to jump right to Antimatter bombs. This would tell them exactly how to do it. In fact it's so simple that even ISIS can do it once they get this data. You can expect to be annihilated sometime next week.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

Can the availability of these data help me — or Iran — develop a nuclear weapon faster?

No. The physics of nuclear weapons is already well understood. The hard part is the logistics of getting the materials and components. These data would not help there.

However, the data are useful for anyone attempting to power a starship with a warp drive, since that requires exposing the dilithium crystals to copious quantities of Higgs bosons.

Re:

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Yes.

However, the nuclear weapon would need an LHC for it to work. Which would be hard to deliver on a plane or missile payload.

Re:

[mbone]

The LHC would make an excellent particle beam weapon source, if you should have a starship (generation ship?) big enough to house it.

Re:Nuclear weapons?

[Jamu]

No. Even though it's called CERN. The research is very much sub-nuclear. And although the energies are higher, this also means the particles involved decay quickly. Similarly in nature, they're created with high energies, but don't last long. The A-bomb relies on the natural abundance of uranium or plutonium. These are unstable elements that can be triggered into decaying in a chain reaction. The particles at the LHC need a lot of energy to create, and they decay quickly. It's been suggested they could make an anti-matter bomb. You'd need to use a lot more energy making the anti-matter than would be released in the bomb. Anti-matter is hard to store: it will interact with any matter destructively. No one can make anti-matter in enough quantity. Even if they could, and despite the great energy efficiencies, plutonium and uranium is so much more practical, along with some fusion fuel, that the relatively low energy efficiencies of a nuclear bomb, isn't a problem.

Re:

[steelfood]

along with some fusion fuel

You mean like water?

Re:

[Eunuchswear]

along with some fusion fuel

You mean like water?

Nope. More likely lithium deuteride.

Re:

[RDW]

This is just a ploy by CERN to divert our attention away from their clandestine plans to take over the world.

What, again [web.cern.ch]?

LHC@home

[Maow]

I wonder how this relates to the LHC@home project?

I've got that plus a couple more running and it seems the LHC project has had some down-time lately.

Are they switching to releasing the data in this form now?

Huge Change

[mbone]

I was told, at a NSF meeting not many months ago, that CERN never makes its data openly available and never would and that US scientists should just plan on getting European collaborators if they want to work on it.

Now, if we just get ESA to start releasing the Rosetta data...

Huge Change

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the CMS collaboration web front. It has a map showing where the collaborators are - lots in the US

http://cms.web.cern.ch/content/cms-collaboration

Re:

[buchner.johannes]

I was told, at a NSF meeting not many months ago, that CERN never makes its data openly available and never would and that US scientists should just plan on getting European collaborators if they want to work on it.

Now, if we just get ESA to start releasing the Rosetta data...

Most of the instruments (e.g. electronics) have a large US contribution. CERN operates the ring, but the instruments are "clients", which are international research teams. That was the vision of CERN after the second world war -- bring leading science to Europe, and make research in Europe attractive. Particle physics was chosen back then.

Re:

[mbone]

I was told, at a NSF meeting not many months ago, that CERN never makes its data openly available and never would and that US scientists should just plan on getting European collaborators if they want to work on it.

Now, if we just get ESA to start releasing the Rosetta data...

Most of the instruments (e.g. electronics) have a large US contribution. CERN operates the ring, but the instruments are "clients", which are international research teams. That was the vision of CERN after the second world war -- bring leading science to Europe, and make research in Europe attractive. Particle physics was chosen back then.

Yes, that is what I meant (and, even, what I said). To get the data you had to join one of the teams and collaborate with the other scientists in the team. Now, apparently, you don't.

3 years?

[countach]

It’s laudible that they release it after 3 years, but then rather reprehensible that they are so scared that someone else might discover something faster than them, and they don’t release it straight away.