LHC May Be Colliding Particle Beams In a Week

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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The much-maligned Large Hadron Collider may finally be colliding beams next week, according to Wired. CERN reports that particles are shooting along 6 of 8 sectors and the last 2 sectors will be activated next week. Barring any sudden singularities or other inconveniences, collisions should begin shortly after next week. :eek:

In the meantime, scientists working at Fermilab’s Tevatron, the current leader of the high-energy particle physics world, have been furiously collecting data. They are hoping to find the Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that would support the Standard Model of physics before the LHC sneaks in and grabs the glory.
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When the beams collide individual particles collide. When they do so at such energies they decompose into smaller, much less stable particles. Scientists basically analyze the cloud of particles that form from the decomposed protons to see what they can find; in this case, they're trying to look for the Higgs Boson, which is supposed to supply particles with their mass.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
When the beams collide individual particles collide. When they do so at such energies they decompose into smaller, much less stable particles. Scientists basically analyze the cloud of particles that form from the decomposed protons to see what they can find; in this case, they're trying to look for the Higgs Boson, which is supposed to supply particles with their mass.
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Man, I just hope they can find my car keys.
 
Assuming another bird from the future doesnt shit on something and blow it up again
 
Epic fail, we will all black out for 2 minutes 17 seconds.
Don't find yourself: flying, driving, swiming, in vitro, operating table, ready to "Pull out" or you might have no future.
Hehehe
 
Fermilab isn't too far from where I live, and I used to take science summer camps there. They have this huge underground tunnel that they use to accelerate particles and the technology doesn't seem too different to what the LHC is starting to do next week.

And for some reason at Fermilab, they like to have bison roam around the lab property...
 
I've set it so that my entire life fortune will be dried up at the end of next week along with a massive amount of debt that's been piling up will come due. I'm really hoping this goes off as I expect it or I might be in trouble.
 
Who are they getting their particles from? Are they like the highest quality particle you can buy, like medical grade particles or did they go lowest bidder particles to be responsible with tax dollars?

I just thinks its a waste to use the expensive particles right now if they are just going to bang them up and stuff. No use damaging perfectly good particles.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
When the beams collide individual particles collide. When they do so at such energies they decompose into smaller, much less stable particles. Scientists basically analyze the cloud of particles that form from the decomposed protons to see what they can find; in this case, they're trying to look for the Higgs Boson, which is supposed to supply particles with their mass.
Click to expand...

Any physics majors who could quickly help me understand what it means for something to "give particles their mass." I don't see how this helps explain "mass" and gravity at all; so what gives the Higgs Boson it's mass? I feel like we're just passing the buck here.

As a physics major I can only hope I will someday understand this...but for now, is there a simple conceptual explanation?

westrock2000 said:
Who are they getting their particles from? Are they like the highest quality particle you can buy, like medical grade particles or did they go lowest bidder particles to be responsible with tax dollars?

I just thinks its a waste to use the expensive particles right now if they are just going to bang them up and stuff. No use damaging perfectly good particles.
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Lol. I recently owned my physics professor with an LHC reference. Intending to illustrate that special relativity is negligible for "normal" objects and can be mostly ignored, he asked the class, "what is the fastest man-made object?" to which I replied, "a particle in the LHC." He admitted that you would, in fact, need to use special relativity (and more) when dealing with that object. :p
 
I do have to admit that I LOL'd at this.

westrock2000 said:
Who are they getting their particles from? Are they like the highest quality particle you can buy, like medical grade particles or did they go lowest bidder particles to be responsible with tax dollars?

I just thinks its a waste to use the expensive particles right now if they are just going to bang them up and stuff. No use damaging perfectly good particles.
Click to expand...
 
HOCP4ME said:
Any physics majors who could quickly help me understand what it means for something to "give particles their mass." I don't see how this helps explain "mass" and gravity at all; so what gives the Higgs Boson it's mass? I feel like we're just passing the buck here.

As a physics major I can only hope I will someday understand this...but for now, is there a simple conceptual explanation?
Click to expand...

the short of it is they are trying to explain they why particles have mass. most of the mass (ie weight) is actually the energy stored in the strong force interactions (IE the energy that keeps the nucleus of an atom together) but a very large group of particles have an intrinsic mass. it gets complicated but mass an inertia are closely related. the higgs field is the standard models theory of particles gain mass. particles that are affected by it can be thought of moving through molasses (though this colloquialism fails on many levels) and this moving through this field is what cause particles to gain mass. the reason they need a big accelerator for this is that the higgs is believed to be very heavy so requires a lot of energy to "see" that small or rephrase it to create the particle.

this is of course far from being a good explication, your going to have to do some reading to really get a feel for it.

and of course it may well prove to be wrong.
 
i actually do hope they don't find the higgs particle. i'm really excited what the LHC will discover. i haven't studied physics, but i like to read as much as i can about it. the higgs particle looks like a bandaid for the standard model imo. we're probably on the wrong track with this and it may be time to find a better theory about why particles have mass. but then, i don't have a real clue about this anyway...
 
maybe they will find out that gravity is joke and that everything is simply an effect of force relative to distance... or a singularity will eat cern and we can stop worrying about it.
 
temujin987 said:
i actually do hope they don't find the higgs particle. i'm really excited what the LHC will discover. i haven't studied physics, but i like to read as much as i can about it. the higgs particle looks like a bandaid for the standard model imo. we're probably on the wrong track with this and it may be time to find a better theory about why particles have mass. but then, i don't have a real clue about this anyway...
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it feels like that to me too though to be honest I can't follow all the math to really understand it.
 
yep, they are starting the LHC tomorrow (monday)
and guess who is gonna push the start button?
Tom Hanks
 
In my astronomy class we did some calculations around the possibility that the LHC will produce a singularity, and if so the mass and time that it would exist. Based on our calculations, the mass would be quite small and would exist for an amount of time that is currently unmeasurable by current methods.

A big concern with the LHC is that there is the possibility that it may produce a black hole, there is also some concern that we may produce some particles that are particularly destructive, as well as their antiparticle counterparts, which when they collide annihilate each other producing mass amounts of energy.
 
Jarod888 said:
In my astronomy class we did some calculations around the possibility that the LHC will produce a singularity, and if so the mass and time that it would exist. Based on our calculations, the mass would be quite small and would exist for an amount of time that is currently unmeasurable by current methods.

A big concern with the LHC is that there is the possibility that it may produce a black hole, there is also some concern that we may produce some particles that are particularly destructive, as well as their antiparticle counterparts, which when they collide annihilate each other producing mass amounts of energy.
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The second paragraph makes me wonder why this experiment won't result in an atomic bomb?
 
riot8ap said:
The second paragraph makes me wonder why this experiment won't result in an atomic bomb?
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if the LHC would've been online "producing" antimatter since the beginning of the universe, it wouldn't have made enough antimatter to light a match
 
riot8ap said:
The second paragraph makes me wonder why this experiment won't result in an atomic bomb?
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It would be like throwing a piece of bird seed at a snowy mountainside and expecting it to turn into a killer snowball as it rolls down the side of the mountain. That kinda thing would work well if this was the Looney Tunes universe, but it's not :rolleyes:
 
riot8ap said:
The second paragraph makes me wonder why this experiment won't result in an atomic bomb?
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The chance of an asteroid hitting Earth at the exact moment scientists turn the machine on is
greater than that of the LHC causing a self-sustaining destructive chain reaction.

So anyone who's worried about those kinds of odds has much more to be worried about than the LHC.
 
temujin987 said:
i actually do hope they don't find the higgs particle. i'm really excited what the LHC will discover. i haven't studied physics, but i like to read as much as i can about it. the higgs particle looks like a bandaid for the standard model imo. we're probably on the wrong track with this and it may be time to find a better theory about why particles have mass. but then, i don't have a real clue about this anyway...
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's always sounded very Star Trek-y to me: New particles and forms of radiation every episode. It's OK though--as long as we can match the resonating frequency, we'll be fine.
 
I got to get there then right now. I want to be driving around the LHC naked in the Back to the future delorean at 88 mph while drinking vodka and wearing a "I'm saving myself for Armageddon hat".

I want to be the worlds next real super hero. Barack Obama was a real let down. Saving the world through "Change" my ass!

woohoo
 
Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.
 
On a more serious note is there a cool article or website that talks about the ramifications or technological breakthroughs of discoverying what triggers mass and the possibilities of being able to toggle it on and off. I know its kind of fringe ideas, but it would be cool to hear what physicists think would be possible.
 
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