Large Hadron Collider

[S O F I]

I could pretend I understood it completely, but naw. It just sounds so bad-ass.

Anyway, it's restarted.

Restart for 'Big Bang' experiment
By Paul Rincon
Science reporter, BBC News

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment has been restarted after a hiatus of 14 months.

Engineers working on the machine achieved a stable, circulating proton beam just after 2100 GMT on Friday.

The LHC is housed in a 27km-long circular tunnel about 100m beneath the French-Swiss border.

The experiment is designed to smash together beams of protons in a bid to shed light on the nature of the Universe.

The LHC has been shut down for repairs since an accident in September 2008.

Operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), the LHC will create similar conditions to those which were present moments after the Big Bang.

"It's great to see beam circulating in the LHC again," said Cern's director-general Rolf Heuer.

"We've still got some way to go before physics can begin, but with this milestone we're well on the way."

Engineers sent their first beam all the way round the LHC's 27km circumference after 1930 GMT on Friday.

The beams themselves are made up of "packets" - each about a metre long - containing billions of protons. But they would disperse if left to their own devices.

Electrical forces had to be used to "capture" the protons. This keeps them tightly huddled in packets, for a stable, circulating beam.

There are some 1,200 "superconducting" magnets which form the LHC's main "ring".

These magnets bend proton beams in opposite directions around the main "ring" at close to the speed of light.

At allotted points around the tunnel, the proton beams cross paths, smashing into one another with enormous energy. Scientists will scour the wreckage of the collisions for discoveries that should extend our knowledge of physics.
# 1 - 14 quadrupole magnets replaced
# 2 - 39 dipole magnets replaced
# 3 - More than 200 electrical connections repaired
# 4 - Over 4km of beam pipe cleaned
# 5 - New restraining system installed for some magnets
# 6 - Hundreds of new helium ports being installed around machine
# 7 - Thousands of detectors added to early warning system

Engineers first circulated a beam all the way around the LHC on 10 September 2008.

But just nine days later, an electrical fault in one of the connections between superconducting magnets caused a tonne of liquid helium to leak into the tunnel.

Liquid helium is used to cool the LHC to its operating temperature of 1.9 kelvin (-271C; -456F).

The machine has been shut down ever since the accident, to allow repairs to take place.

Professor Norman McCubbin from the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, added: "I'm sure every particle physicist has been feeling just a little bit impatient as the 're-start' of the LHC has drawn nearer. It's great to see beams circulating again."

The damage caused to the collider meant 53 superconducting magnets had to be replaced and about 200 electrical connections repaired.

Engineers have also been installing a new early warning system which could prevent incidents of the kind which shut down the experiment.

Cern has spent some 40m Swiss Francs (£24m) on repairs to the collider.

 

[Cooper]

Yuh it's back. Anyone still think the world will end?

 

[S O F I]

^I know some village people in Serbia do, lol.

Anyway, when is this all supposed to go down? The actual collision and the results?

 

[ARon]

I bet killuminati or whatever his name is thinks so. I think the shit is cool myself.

 

[Casey]

We have research like this happening and there are still people that believe in Creationism. LOL.

 

[Cooper]

^I know some village people in Serbia do, lol.

Anyway, when is this all supposed to go down? The actual collision and the results?

Should have something within 6 months I think

 

[Kobe]

I first heard about this when reading the book 'Angels and Demons' by Dan Brown. The movie absolutely made a mocekery of a god read It was an interesting read to me. The stuff about anti-matter made me so surprised about the research that goes on at CERN.

 

[Cooper]

I first heard about this when reading the book 'Angels and Demons' by Dan Brown. The movie absolutely made a mocekery of a god read It was an interesting read to me. The stuff about anti-matter made me so surprised about the research that goes on at CERN.

The anti-matter stuff contained in a Dan Brown book isn't totally scientific.

 

[Duke]

This is one of the coolest projects ever built.

 

[Bender]

didn't the author dan brown write about something such as this experiment..

 

[Glockmatic]

The Higgs-Boson will travel back in time and ruin the LHC again. It's obvious that it doesn't want to be discovered.

 

[Rukas]

The Higgs-Boson will travel back in time and ruin the LHC again. It's obvious that it doesn't want to be discovered.

:thumb:

This is my favorite of all the theories.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

yes, it relaunced 3-4 days ago.

they showed a computer animation of what the collision is expected to look like, with the particles expected to go in all sorts of differernt directions after the collision.

 

[Flipmo]