iainsteele
Member
He is also a Naim owner I think...
Large Hadron Collider nearly ready
- Thread starter auric
- Start date
He is also a Naim owner I think...
iainsteele
Member
I'll give it a go...
The "standard model" of particle physics says that matter is made up of things called hadrons and things called leptons. Examples of hadrons are things like protons and neutrons which sit in the centre of atoms. Electrons (which orbit the centre of the atom) are leptons.
Hadrons themselves are made up of things called quarks, of which there are supposed to be six kinds, called "up", "down", "strange", "charm", "top" and "bottom". A proton is made up of two up quarks and one down quark. And a neutron is made of two down quarks and one up quark.
By smashing particles into each other at the Tevatron, you can create a lot of energy in a small space. And Einstein (E=mc2) says that energy and mass are really the same thing. So if you can put the right amount of energy in, you can create a particle which has that mass. For example if you put about 900 mega-electron volts in you can create a proton.
Particle theorists can use computer calculations of the standard model to predict what that energy should be to create other particles. In this case they predicted you could create a particle made up of two strange and a bottom quark by putting 6 giga-electron volts of energy in. When the Tevatron created collisions with that energy, they found the new particle was indeed created as they had predicted. Hence this new particle (which in itself is probably not really that interesting) is another important proof that the standard model is working well.
One of the aims of the LHC (which can go to higher collision energies than previous accelerators) is to "go beyond the standard" model and try and break it, e.g. by discovering collisions at energies that were not predicted creating something.
cheers,
iain
It can be boiled down thus:
1. If it works, we discover the cool stuff we hoped for, everybody's happy and we've got another particle accelerator to do more cool stuff with. -- Win.
2. If it doesn't work, and we don't discover the cool stuff we hoped for, we'll still discover some not-quite-as-cool-as-we-were-hoping-for stuff anyway, and we've still got another particle accelerator to do yet more cool stuff with. -- Win
3. If it destroys the planet and all life on it then we can't really care about that any more, our demise will be instantaneous. -- Ok, this outcome is an epic FAIL, but we still had a chance to play with a particle accelerator to destroy the planet with -- which on balance is still pretty cool.
1. If it works, we discover the cool stuff we hoped for, everybody's happy and we've got another particle accelerator to do more cool stuff with. -- Win.
2. If it doesn't work, and we don't discover the cool stuff we hoped for, we'll still discover some not-quite-as-cool-as-we-were-hoping-for stuff anyway, and we've still got another particle accelerator to do yet more cool stuff with. -- Win
3. If it destroys the planet and all life on it then we can't really care about that any more, our demise will be instantaneous. -- Ok, this outcome is an epic FAIL, but we still had a chance to play with a particle accelerator to destroy the planet with -- which on balance is still pretty cool.
Jonathan Ribee
Unavailable at present
Physicists. Who are remarkably funny people. You just need a first degree in a science subject to get their jokes. I like the properties. Flavour, colour, handedness - some of the most basic ones.
We have one of these "mad scientist" guys at our place, who delights in acronyms...
His best effort so far was Fast Universal Communications With Isolation Transformers.
By the time the German Bosses realised and ordered a name-change, it was too late. There are hundreds of documents referring to this system, and most people don't know what you are talking about until you say "you know, the FUCWIT".
He's probably building his own accelerator as we speak...
Cheers,
Mort
His best effort so far was Fast Universal Communications With Isolation Transformers.
By the time the German Bosses realised and ordered a name-change, it was too late. There are hundreds of documents referring to this system, and most people don't know what you are talking about until you say "you know, the FUCWIT".
He's probably building his own accelerator as we speak...
Cheers,
Mort
Jonathan Ribee
Unavailable at present
Mike - no offence, but you are a robot, aren't you?
Jonathan Ribee
Unavailable at present
(ahem) Berada with a B. (many geek points)
