The Large Hadron Collider MEGATHREAD / FAQ

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ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

NoCleverName posted:

How do you stop a beam? (Or remove it from the collider) Do you have somewhere that you let it out of the ring and it just blasts into something that can take the hit? I'm assuming if you just turn off the magnets it would blow a hole in the side of the tube.

They have a really nifty solution for this, some huge blocks of concrete that they can steer the beam into. StarkingBarfish, could you dig up the details?

# ¿ Aug 7, 2008 23:36

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 00:14

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

ReV VAdAUL posted:

Thanks for posting this, I have a semi-serious question, are there any likely everyday applications the results from these experiments will have? I imagine that if so its only very indirectly but I love the idea of something along the lines of "our washing machines are now 30% more effective thanks to LHC research!"

Someone else on another site asked a similar question - and got a few good answers

# ¿ Aug 7, 2008 23:44

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

Tasteful Bulge posted:

Although, being in the South, I did once hear that the LHC might prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Big Bang happened, which will instantly cause God to cease to exist and immediately unmake all of creation. I try not to talk to many people here anymore.

That's a new one. How does that work, exactly? If we somehow disprove god, that means he never existed...but then he wouldn't be around to unmake us, would he?

Suddenly I feel like I'm in a Douglas Adams novel.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2008 04:58

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

Now we all can build our own LHC colliders!

CERN has published the full technical details of the design and construction of the LHC and it's six detectors.

Anyone want to lend me a few dozen billion euros?

# ¿ Aug 26, 2008 00:31

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

So, this event tomorrow is just to test that the LHC works correctly, right? I assume "low energy" means there's no chance to see anything you haven't already seen before.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2008 14:21

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

synftw posted:

I believe Starking put the time of a press release at around a year after the Higgs is detected, if it ever is.

That sounds wrong. Unless you're talking about the actual event happening, data being recorded, and it taking a year to analyze the data gathered. But that also sounds a bit off.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2008 14:48

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

HauntedRobot posted:

Unless the force of the collision sends a shockwave back in time, in which case we'd feel it now. But then at least we'd know not to do the experiment. :v

Paradox detected! Timeline collapse imminent! :siren:

# ¿ Sep 9, 2008 15:35

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

StarkingBarfish posted:

There you have it, folks. The first beam was a complete and total success on all counts. Protons have been circulated at 450GeV (nominal) around both directions of the LHC.

Lyn Evans, head of the accelerator division looked like he was making GBS threads gold bars earlier, and rightly so. This is the first time an accelerator has come online so quickly, without a single hitch. I thought it'd take a lot longer than it did to get to this stage, but it took less than 8 hours to get both beams circulating.

It looks like they didn't get cocky and attempt collisions, which is I guess a smart move- they ended on a roll instead of trying to push things. I'd say a lot of the teams involved will have been working around the clock to get here, and they deserve a rest.

In October, but possibly a little earlier than we expected, we will see first collisions. For now though, all the detectors are reporting that they have seen the beam, and been able to acquire data from it.

The LHCb saw tracks in the VELO, Outer Tracker, and even reconstructed rings in the RICH. This is the first data from the LHC beam!

What you see above is reconstructed tracks (protons, and decay products) passing through the LHCb detector, fresh from the beam this morning. This is loving glorious. I'm off out for some beers with the rest of my group.

Thanks for showing so much interest guys and gals- I'll be back on to answer anything you have to ask tomorrow.

I'm probably dumb asking this, but where do these protons and decay products come from? I assumed circulating the beam wouldn't produce these byproducts due to there not being any collisions, so what are these tracks of? Beam particles that escape, or intra-beam-collisions, or...?

# ¿ Sep 12, 2008 00:26

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

ChubbyEmoBabe posted:

Maybe I'm not smart enough to grasp it but "nothing" simply does not compute. Does it basically mean "outer space" without poo poo floating around that goes on forever? Or is our expanding universe a firecracker in an anthill relatively and it is simply to hard to wrap our minds around the enormity of what is outside the leading edge of our universe?

(I know no one has the answers to these questions, it's just something that makes my head hurt if I think about it too much)

It's kinda like this: Imagine a balloon being inflated. The universe is the surface of the balloon. No matter where you go on the surface, you can't get to the "end" of it, and still, the surface area increases as the balloon expands.

And no, you can't go "outside" or "inside" the balloon. As far as we know, the balloon surface is everything that exists.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2008 00:09

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

Intel&Sebastian posted:

But what happens if all three are missing?

Expand the definition of "around".

# ¿ Sep 13, 2008 01:22

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

Olothreutes posted:

Let me attempt to clarify. If we assume that the universe has a defined edge or limit

It doesn't.

Travel for long enough, and you'll end up where you started.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2008 02:00

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

Big Fat Duck posted:

If I was an old rear end physicist--I'm thinking the kind of physicist who is about 95 years old and he's basically dead and has nothing other than physics and the LHC to love because it's his life's magnum opus.

When the LHC is completely done, I would definitely contemplate being put into the beam chamber and being completely blasted into oblivion by highest energy run of the proton beam poo poo. It would be like the two beams hit each other right where you stand or near it and you would of course be completely incinerated into oblivion at this point but before that you could catch a split second of an event that would mimic the big bang which is probably a huge loving deal to a majority of old rear end physicists.

pros:
you get to see a mini big bang for a fraction of a second (probably not noticeable to the human eye)

You're basically ending your own life when you want it to and doing it in the most theoretically painless and stressless way.

cons:
you're vaporized or elementalized or whatever the gently caress dead after that

there's also the slight possibility of you later reassembling yourself as a blue superbeing superhero which is a pro or a con depending on your position on having those kinds of powers and being constantly blue

If you were an old rear end physicist, would you guys do it?

other cons:
You're ruining million-dollar equipment by having your insides blasted all over the place.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2008 02:08

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 00:14

ymgve: Jan 2, 2004; Offensive Clock

RoadCrewWorker posted:

So does that really mean the whole system is now completely unable to perform anything? Id imagine with a system this big and expensive to sustain thered be at least 3 layers of alternatives to exploit any "downtime" components of the system has to increase the workload on remaining working parts. Considering the financial/technical dimensions, i figured there was a huge flowchart with every possible "breakdown" and "usage alternative" to keep the system on high load at most times. Is there really no "Plan B,...,Z"? Or am i thinking way too modular (CS background)?

He talked about other teams tuning their detectors earlier, so it's not like the time is completely wasted.

oh, StarkingBarfish: Can the detectors be used to detect high-energy particles coming from space, or are they too focused on the beampipes to be used for something like that?

# ¿ Sep 20, 2008 16:30

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