Now that is a big gun :)

[sdifox]

http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

I wonder who is footing the electric bill.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Yes a 7 TeV proton collision is pretty big. Anyone know what the largest collision energy ever is?

 

[montag451]

Isn't it CERN at the moment?
The US are building a bigger one, but from what i understand, CERN is to be upgraded to outgun the new US attempt.
I may be wrong as it was some time ago that this info was hidden into the dark folds of the gibbering mush of jelly that i call my brain.

 

[Xyo II]

Originally posted by: montag451
Isn't it CERN at the moment?
The US are building a bigger one, but from what i understand, CERN is to be upgraded to outgun the new US attempt.
I may be wrong as it was some time ago that this info was hidden into the dark folds of the gibbering mush of jelly that i call my brain.

Yes, CERN is the largest at the moment.

 

[Molondo]

" we are just trying to figure out how the universe started.."

translation;
"we are researching a better/more powerfull nuclear bomb"

 

[MetalStorm]

Originally posted by: Molondo
" we are just trying to figure out how the universe started.."

translation;
"we are researching a better/more powerfull nuclear bomb"

dufus

 

[LeatherNeck]

Originally posted by: MetalStorm

Originally posted by: Molondo
" we are just trying to figure out how the universe started.."

translation;
"we are researching a better/more powerfull nuclear bomb"

dufus

LOL. It always cracks me up who ends up posting in the Highly Technical forum considering the disclaimer that dufuses (or is it dufi) should stay away.

 

[python023]

Originally posted by: sdifox
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

I wonder who is footing the electric bill.

When I first read the title of that link I saw "LHC - The Large Hardon Collider."

 

[mackle]

ohhhhh behold the big version of the Particle Accelerator...

 

[fatty4ksu]

What does it do?

 

[alienal99]

esentially it shoots protons into each other at ridiculously high speeds to create energy roughly equal to the energy of a bumble bee flying around. It also shoots lead particles and some other random elements....Just think of trying to shoot a penny from france going north and a penny from france going south, have them follow the circumference of the globe, and run into each other over france, creating an explosion the size of an m-80 firecracker.....Very interesting to a physicist, but seemingly a huge waste of time to anyone else.

 

[fatty4ksu]

Originally posted by: alienal99
esentially it shoots protons into each other at ridiculously high speeds to create energy roughly equal to the energy of a bumble bee flying around. It also shoots lead particles and some other random elements....Just think of trying to shoot a penny from france going north and a penny from france going south, have them follow the circumference of the globe, and run into each other over france, creating an explosion the size of an m-80 firecracker.....Very interesting to a physicist, but seemingly a huge waste of time to anyone else.

thx bro.

What do they use the data for? what kind of discoverys?

 

[sdifox]

I am hoping they would finally get to detect graviton. That ATLAS detector is something to behold.

 

[montag451]

Again, in the mush of my mind, there was someone I know who used to work at Rutherford lab in UK - his rough estimate was 20 - 30 years for discovering (proving the existence of) the graviton.

 

[mackle]

Ohh no....we have different ideas...something like a sniper gun...hehe

 

[irwincur]

The scary thing is that when they built the first accelerator they had no clue as to what the outcome would be. Some scientists even theorised that it could create a localized black hole that would instantly devour the Solar System. These new devices tread even closer to the unknown...

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: irwincur
The scary thing is that when they built the first accelerator they had no clue as to what the outcome would be. Some scientists even theorised that it could create a localized black hole that would instantly devour the Solar System. These new devices tread even closer to the unknown...

Yes, but those "scientists" are the people who claim that title after majoring in liberal arts at a 2nd rate college, then minoring in "general science" by taking 20 credit hours of intro courses. Most of them go on to middle management careers, where they do no harm. But occasionally, some of them go public with "proof" of ID or something.

At CERN, they expect to be detecting evidence of a few black holes created per month; and if I'm not mistaken, at one of the colliders early this year, all evidence was pointing to the creation of a short-lived black hole.

edit: to be fair, they did consider if creating a tiny black hole would be of any danger... I believe the odds were calculated to be "infinitesimal", not 0.

 

[Mark R]

Do you think it would hurt if you got shot by said gun?

 

[Born2bwire]

Hee, that pic from the OP reminds me of a neat lil anecdote. When I toured the main ring at Fermi Lab, they told me that when it was originally being constructed that the workers and scientists would ride around the ring on bicycles. They had to stop that rather quickly as the riders could not keep the bikes up because of vertigo. The image of physcists riding around and crashing bikes still brings a smile to my face. Once the LHC starts running experiments in two years it will be the most powerful collider. But until then, Fermilab's Tevatron is the most powerful that I am aware of at 1 TeV. It should be really interesting to see what will happen with CERN's promised 7 TeV.

 

[scottish144]

According to a recent Popular Science Article, the LHCat CERN will actually be able to create micro-black holes!

 

[AbAbber2k]

I remember when people were freaking out about talk about mini black holes possibly destroying the earth, even though they'd be so small they would literally burn out instantaneously due to a complete lack of matter or energy with which to feed them. Hawking radiation and whatnot. Not that I know a lot on the subject.