Items tagged with Large Hadron Collider
You've already heard of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest, baddest, and highest-energy particle accelerator anywhere on the planet. The LHC sits in a circular tunnel 27km in circumference buried around 50m to 175m beneath the earth. It's purpose isn't to destroy the world, like so many doomsayers thought it would when physicists flipped the power switch, but to collide two counter rotating beams of protons or heavy ions to recreate the conditions just after the theorized Big Bang. By doing so, physicists hope to gain a better understanding of all sorts of geeky topics, like quantum mechanics, general relativity, the structure of space and time, and other things that would make your...
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As death threats preceded the startup of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) last year, one might not be surprised at foul play as testing is performed prior to the restart of the LHC. But fowl play? The LHC has been out of action for over a year, due to a helium leak that caused it to be shut down on September 19th of last year, nine days after its start-up. With the LHC repaired, scientists have been running tests in anticipation of a restart later this month. However, the testing process was halted on Monday after the power to the LHC failed. A CERN spokeswoman, Christine Sutton, said scientists discovered fowl play:"The problem related to the high voltage supply. We get mains voltage from the...
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The Large Hadron Collider, damaged by a liquid helium leak relatively soon after being started for the first time, had already had its restart date pushed back from a few months, to spring, to June, to late summer. Now it is being pushed back to the end of September - over a year after the world's largest particle accelerator was knocked offline. According to the press release, collisions could follow the restart in late October. The LHC would shut down shortly over Christmas, and then run through to autumn 2010. CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said: "The schedule we have now is without a doubt the best for the LHC and for the physicists waiting for data. It is cautious, ensuring that all the...
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