Large Hadron Collider Upgrade “Could Upend Particle Physics”

Megalith

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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is getting supercharged with a $950M upgrade that will help physicists unravel the universe by making the contraption more sensitive to subtle quirks in the laws of physics. The machine works by “slamming subatomic particles together at close to the speed of light”: these collisions will be five to ten times greater after it is upgraded.

To ramp up the number of collisions at the LHC, engineers will fit powerful magnets to squeeze the protons into finer, more dense beams. They then plan to fit devices called crab cavities that use an electromagnetic pulse to give bunches of protons a little sideways kick as they enter the LHC’s detectors. This makes the protons rotate a smidgen the moment before they strike protons coming the other way, which drives up the number of collisions.
 
I still remember a female buddy calling the LHC a "large hard-on collider" when explaining it to a friend years ago. You can imagine her face when I butted in and explained that to her :D
 
You know ... I really don't want particle physics upended! :( I'm pretty happy with particle physics the way they are.

Unless it makes new flavors at Starbucks.
 
Answer to the Fermi Paradox: Most civilizations build too powerful particle accelerators and destroy themselves.
Actual answer: life is rare; space is big; radio is weak; magic (FTL/reactionless drive) doesn't exist.
 
particles of particles of particles.. This is like the only branch of science that makes me think there is a God up there laughing.
 
Like blowing up a Volkswagen beetle with a NUC and trying to put it all back together again or looking for the rearview mirror out of all the pieces.
 
If we don't learn anything that's of practical use then what's the point of the LHC? Seems more like workfare for theoretical physicists.
 
If we don't learn anything that's of practical use then what's the point of the LHC? Seems more like workfare for theoretical physicists.

Lol yeah because everything that was practical, started out being practical immediately. That zener diode just magically appeared. So did all those specialty transistors and other microelectronics. No theory at all, nope.

Humans have pretty much gotten this far by poking around with a stick. We take semieducated pokes, our stick lit on fire, and we had fire. That's essentially progression. This is a very large, expensive poking machine, and hopefully we'll get something out of it. If not, it's better than the money being spent towards more nukes and war.
 
Nah, these upgrades are just to create quantum entanglement heatsinks to be mounted on Intel's new 28core CPU. Through quantum entanglement the heat load will transfer into their liquid helium cooling systems, so that the consumer can reasonably expect a guaranteed 4.5GHz overclock. Maybe even 5GHz if the consumer has a 480v main for supplemental cooling.
 
If we don't learn anything that's of practical use then what's the point of the LHC? Seems more like workfare for theoretical physicists.


Basic science is basic.

particle theory is about as basic as it gets.

The computer you are reading this on would not exist if not for pioneers in this field.
 
Lol yeah because everything that was practical, started out being practical immediately. That zener diode just magically appeared.
If I described a zener diode to people versed in what passed for electronics at that time, they would be able to tell me if it had useful application. You think the inventors of the lightbulb were clueless of the benefits? Edison poured a bunch of money into countless iterations trying to find a cost effective version because he could see the payoff.

And considering the a LHC is price of admission for anything 'useful' out of this at this time, I don't see anything 'useful' in our lifetimes. Leave it to a generation that can build a LHC for a few million. We're wasting a ton of resources and budget just to write papers. Physics should lead practicality but not by millennia.
 
If I described a zener diode to people versed in what passed for electronics at that time, they would be able to tell me if it had useful application. You think the inventors of the lightbulb were clueless of the benefits? Edison poured a bunch of money into countless iterations trying to find a cost effective version because he could see the payoff.

And considering the a LHC is price of admission for anything 'useful' out of this at this time, I don't see anything 'useful' in our lifetimes. Leave it to a generation that can build a LHC for a few million. We're wasting a ton of resources and budget just to write papers. Physics should lead practicality but not by millennia.

If you described a Zener diode to Max Planck, he would have give you a funny look. but the research he won his Nobel prize for laid the foundations for all that followed.

Your attitude was mirrored by a fellow scientist of his at the time... The Munich physics professor Philipp von Jolly advised Planck against going into physics, saying, "in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes." That was in the 1870's.

still a few holes left to fill in the field, looks like....
 
Lol yeah because everything that was practical, started out being practical immediately. That zener diode just magically appeared. So did all those specialty transistors and other microelectronics. No theory at all, nope.

Humans have pretty much gotten this far by poking around with a stick. We take semieducated pokes, our stick lit on fire, and we had fire. That's essentially progression. This is a very large, expensive poking machine, and hopefully we'll get something out of it. If not, it's better than the money being spent towards more nukes and war.

But the LHC isn't going to tell us anything about zener diodes/transistors or other micro electronics; we already know about those things. I'm not knocking our curiosity about our modern world, I just like to see practical uses come from billions of dollars spent on science projects. I like your analogy about poking a stick though. :)
 
If you described a Zener diode to Max Planck, he would have give you a funny look. but the research he won his Nobel prize for laid the foundations for all that followed.
because no one was interested in the behavior of light waves and radio waves in 1920's?
His work had comparatively immediate meaning and cost was comparatively trivial. Bad example actually.

Your attitude was mirrored by a fellow scientist of his at the time... The Munich physics professor Philipp von Jolly advised Planck against going into physics, saying, "in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes." That was in the 1870's.

still a few holes left to fill in the field, looks like....

We're not going against physics here with LHC, we're looking to affirm existing physics and fill a few holes. Seriously. They are looking for confirmation tests, not let's see what happens.
 
But the LHC isn't going to tell us anything about zener diodes/transistors or other micro electronics; we already know about those things. I'm not knocking our curiosity about our modern world, I just like to see practical uses come from billions of dollars spent on science projects. I like your analogy about poking a stick though. :)


The Entire point of research such as this is to find out things we don't know yet, or to confirm things we suspect are true but need confirmation.

You cannot assume we already know all that is knowable. because that is obviously a fallacy. The applications of new discoveries can only be speculated on,
 
because no one was interested in the behavior of light waves and radio waves in 1920's?
His work had comparatively immediate meaning and cost was comparatively trivial. Bad example actually.



We're not going against physics here with LHC, we're looking to affirm existing physics and fill a few holes. Seriously. They are looking for confirmation tests, not let's see what happens.


Exactly why is it a bad example? his work on quanta at the time had no practical application that could be commercialized, yet, 100 years later we are using devices that utilize these principles.

lack of Immediate practical use is the criteria that is being criticized about the LHD. yet if that is all we ever base research on, we will get nowhere. and if do not confirm theories with confirmation experiments, these theories will remain just that.
 
We should encourage learning. I look at he LHC is a massive investment in education for our future. and I fully support it. I want to see the US invest 10 times that in the education of our population today. We don't encourage freedom of though. We have even changed how we teach words and reading to remove personal growth and learning in favor of regimented expectations. It's harder and harder for a child today to take what they have learned as a foundation to grow on.

Throw a new word at a kid in a book. Lets say a teen drama dealing with Sci-Fi. They read the word... they see how it is used and spelled. My generation would slowly figure out the meaning of the word based on it's use through the book in iterative steps. Today's students are not given the same tools to learn with. How they understand language is based 100% on rote memorization. It discourages creative thought growth and understanding.

We need the tools to understand the world around us, in mathematics, science, and language these need to be taught from the building blocks up. Not at 5 steps beyond where we should start at. Otherwise we will have Millennials unable to read or comprehend advanced language.

And that is the America I see today. When I use (as it has been called.) a 5 dollar word in my vocabulary I see millennials just tone out. Not understanding the word and loosing the entire sentence. They don't have the damn tools in many cases to turn that sentence around to form a meaning for the word.
 
Yea here in Texas we almost did one. I was sad it fell through AFTER we had dug the tunnel. WE spent as much to fill it in as it would have taken to finish it. Isn't that some BS?
 
Yea here in Texas we almost did one. I was sad it fell through AFTER we had dug the tunnel. WE spent as much to fill it in as it would have taken to finish it. Isn't that some BS?

That's a damn shame. if nothing else, it would have made a nice high speed go kart track...
 
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