RSS - PostsI don’t really understand the science behind Hadron Colliders. (I dropped out of Physics for Engineers because I was going to fail otherwise.) But the fact that the world’s largest one EVAR is powering up today and the entire world could, however remote the possibility (the U.K.’s Astronomer Royal put the odds of destroying the world at 1 in 50 million), wink out of existence any moment is teh awesome.
Large Hadron Collider (LHC): Best—and Worst—Case Scenarios
In Twitter terms, taken from the Wired article above:
LHC FAQ in 140 Characters or Less
Q: WTF is a Large Hadron Collider?
A: Hadrons are the parent family for protons and neutrons. The collider will smash protons together to see what they’re made of.
Q: How does the Large Hadron Collider work?
A: It smashes particles moving at near the speed of light together. Then, detectors look for very rare particles in the wreckage.
Q: Is smashing things together to look for progressively smaller and rarer particles really how particle physics is done?
A: More or less: yes. Theoretical physicists work out the math. The experiments get run to see whose math matches the world.
Q: Gimme the stats on the Collider? Factoid stats.
A: 17 miles around. 9,000 magnets. 7,000 scientists. $10 billion. Operating temp: -456.25 F. Power used: 120 MW. Network: 1.8+Gb/s.
Q: How does a particle detector work?
A: They work like digital cameras with 150 megapixels taking snapshots 600 million times a second! Then algorithms look for interesting stuff.
Q: Is there an end ‘product/goal’ that the average Joe will eventually see from these experiments? ie:teleportation?
A: Not directly, but confirmation that physicists understand the universe would be nice. And you never know. The engineering can lead to other things.
Q: When you smash particles at nearly the speed of light isn’t that going to release a lot of energy?
A: Yes. The highest-energy collisions will reach 14 trillion electron volts.
Q: How many particles are actually colliding?
A: Hacked Wikipedia: The beam pipes contain 1.0×10-9 grams of hydrogen, which
would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.
Q: Is the Large Hadron Collider a threat to human civilization and the existence of the Earth?
A: No. Einstein’s relativity says it’s impossible. And, just in case, studies of highly-energetic cosmic rays hitting earth rule it out, too.
My favorite part of the project is the possibility of the creation of micro black holes, even if they could barely create enough energy to light a light bulb. Because seriously? Science fiction is so for reals, folks.
