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Large Hadron Collider nearly ready

auric

pfm Member
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is preparing for its first small tests in early August, leading to a planned full-track test in September - and the first planned particle collisions before the end of the year. The final step before starting is the chilling of the entire collider to -271.25 C (-456.25 F). Here is a collection of photographs from CERN, showing various stages of completion of the LHC and several of its larger experiments (some over seven stories tall), over the past several years.


Some photos via the Boston Globe showing the inner workings of the LHC and to my eyes they are rather good with one or two causing me to think of a Stargate.
 
Good post, nearly started one myself and totally fascinating, i believe its now the coldest place in the universe!

Martin
 
Great photos and the subject is indeed fascinating. I'm finding it difficult to conceive how cold that is. 17 miles of it!
 
Tell me when they fire this thing up will it be magnificent, with lights and noise and wooshes and smoke.

Or will they need a computer to know anything is happening at all?
 
anyone with sky hd can see a documentary on this on national geographic hd in the megastructures series .

its also on anytime tv .
 
Wow, all that money, and all that appalling slide show.

Scientists suck at powerpoint. Fact.
 
But will we all get sucked into the black hole, or will it stop at the English Channel is it.

DS
 
Martins link said :

"...CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) scientists concede that there is a real possibility of creating destructive theoretical anomalies such as miniature black holes, strangelets and deSitter space transitions. These events have the potential to fundamentally alter matter and destroy our planet is it

Well, as long as it stops at the French border....

DS
 
I made many of the superconducting magnets that line the tunnel (which is why I am now on the other side of the world, about as far away as I can get.....;) )
It is a mind boggling project that surprisingly few people know anything about (even that it exists). Good to see it is hitting the news more often.

Some other interesting projects if anyone is interested:

http://www.iter.org/

https://lasers.llnl.gov/programs/nif/
 
Incredible!

I do wonder though, since it is flying only single partials about the place, why does the inner diameter of the tube need to be so large? Why not make it the width of a straw?
 
****ing hell, that's cold. Wonder how long it takes to reach temp. I bet they switch it on and it sucks up all the electricity in the world and comes to life and stands up and starts eating people and buildings and knows everything that's on the Internet and takes over the whole world.
 
No point getting too excited.

As I discovered when I did the first run in mine (which I was hoping would form the basis of a superconducting interconnect btw) you can create black holes. Fortunately, as Stephen Hawking discovered back in the Seventies, black holes on this scale are immensely unstable due to quantum effects giving rise to radiation which makes the black hole lose mass and "evaporate".

Unfortunatly this blew the end off the drain pipe I'd used, and the singularity escaped.

Serves me right. I was able to write this note next year when I get out of hospital.

Mark
 


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