Thread: CERN LHC switch on - when?

Hi all

Just wondering when the LHC will be at full power so I can prepare to be eaten by a black hole lol

Thanks

you won't be eaten by a black hole. if if LHC can create a sustainable black hole, we should have been eaten by one a long time ago.

Haha now thats funny.

I know someone that works for them; they said there have been some delays and that it will be operational at minimum the end of summer, if not most likely next summer.

Instead of calling it the LHC, we should call it, "The Death Star" (from Star Wars).

"The Death Star". Nice.

I was looking at their site, it says they are putting in the proton rods this month and should have the first collisions in about 2 months time, so sometime in August I think is when we should plan for the end of the world.

Geez, gotta make sure I pay my bills by then.

is this gonna be the fucking year 2000 thing all over again?
death cults committing suicide and shit.

lol

They're already making big news of it, and the propoganda ans supersticion is spreading again. Seeing as I know a decent amount of science and especially physics and come across often as clever etc etc, I've had all who know me (who aren't scientific) asking me if a small black hole will eat the Earth etc.

Black holes exists only betwin womens legs.
And if you think there are some other type of black holes try finding them in your head.

They're only black because the sun don't shine there. Think about that one :wink:.

so when does the Long Hell Crusher switch on then ?

Did you know, that the very same collisions that CERN will be capable of have been occurring on earth for billions of years? All scientists are trying to do is reproduce these same occurrences in an environment where they can study them properly. If your worried about this, you have obviously listening to someone who doesn't know much about what this thing is actually built to do and saw the word "Black Hole" and got freaked out.

Even in the remote chance a micro black hole is produced, it will almost instantly expel all of its matter and extinguish itself.

There is nothing "Death Star" about this device! If cosmic rays, which bombard our planet every second, do produce micro black holes when colliding with the earth, they pass right through us without causing any catastrophe.

I came to this thread because I'd (actually) like to know when the the thing starts working.


For my part, the most amazing part about it, is that so many 'nations' could come together and spill so many dollars for such abstract purposes.

Abstract? This tool will help scientists discover wether or not our current theories on universe inflation are right in assuming the presence of an as of yet undiscovered matter.

One of the many benefits of this device is to prove or disprove the existence of Dark Matter. This will either solidify current theories or change our understanding of the current model of gravity.

This is far from abstract imho.

This is far from abstract imho.


....Like E=MC Squared is not abstract. But you know that for 99.999% of humanity, though it governs their lives, in an abstract way, it's completely without meaning or value.


I meant: that nations should pour dollars into an enterprise with no immediate dollar-return.

Originally Posted by Vexer

...
I meant: that nations should pour dollars into an enterprise with no immediate dollar-return.

Somewhat off topic, but this just reminds me of Carl Sagan's press conference in 1993. He discusses a hypothetical example of how a press conference came to be from Maxwell's blunderings with some inconsequential equations for the time.

Originally Posted by Vexer

I came to this thread because I'd (actually) like to know when the the thing starts working.


For my part, the most amazing part about it, is that so many 'nations' could come together and spill so many dollars for such abstract purposes.

Depends on what you mean by working. I mean this thing is the most complex machine ever built. The first thing is to test the whole vacuum system. This is a nightmare to start with. Anyone ever worked with a ultra-high vaccum system knows how diffcult it is to get those thing sealed for good even if the system isn't really that big. Evacuating a 27 km long tube plus the ATLAS- and all the other detectors can drive you insane.
Then there is the problem to keep the umpteenthousand superconducting magnets at their working temp. If you can not gurantee this and just one of them warms up above a certain threshhold the currents flowing in those things are big enough to melt the magnets. I mean we're talking several thousand amps here. And to my knowledge this is the largest operation using liquid helium on this scale (several hundred tons).
After you start generating the proton-packages you need to check if all those magnets and accelaration devices work in sync with each other. No easy task. When I was working at SUNY Synchrotron Light Source in Stony Brook sometimes we had to wait for several hours for an injection of electrons to be successful. ANd for the LHC we are talkin about generating around 2000 packages of protons circling the collider at the same time. And if you screw up the syncronisation and at one place those packages slam into the tube wall this is it for the LHC as the energies created during the impact are big enough to melt the tube material.
And even if all this is worked out the problems just start as the amount of data generated has to be scrutinized for the signs of particles the scientists look for like e.g. the Higgs or other interesting stuff.

So I guess we have to wait until middle of next year for the initial results.

(CelticMadScientist – didn’t’ want to wait for the video-thing.



Zitterbewegung I mean this thing is the most complex machine ever built. Is that a fact?

Interesting info.


(Good luck (in reply to your Adams tag) to the wizards at Unseen University in their High Energy Magic Building).

Originally Posted by Vexer

Zitterbewegung I mean this thing is the most complex machine ever built.

Is that a fact?

Interesting info.

I can't think of any one machine more complex. Have you taken a look at the ATLAS detector alone? And there are 2 more of the same size. And the LHC is not only confined to the 27km tunnel, but the particles are pre-accelerated in what was left from the old cern, which in itself is a complete cyclotron of 5 km length.

So I guess this qualifies as the most complex single purpose machine on earth.