Large Hadron Collider

[Dillinger4]

Geek cool factor X1,000,000,000,000

innit.



I have told this story on the other LHC thread, but the reason it has been delayed so long is because there was problems with the magnets.

There are two teams working on them, one from the US, and a European team (which my friend is on).

Apparently, it all went wrong because the US team just decided to use imperial measurement when calibrating the magnets, even though the entire rest of the project had been agreed to use metric.

 

[_pH_]

innit.



I have told this story on the other LHC thread, but the reason it has been delayed so long is because there was problems with the magnets.

There are two teams working on them, one from the US, and a European team (which my friend is on).

Apparently, it all went wrong because the US team just decided to use imperial measurement when calibrating the magnets, even though the entire rest of the project had been agreed to use metric.

No way!! That's not the first time that's happened is it? Didn't some other science project go tits up for the same reason?

 

[kyser_soze]

Yanks deliberately seeking to fuck up international project...now there's a story, not.

They're just peeved cos 'all' they've got is the upgraded Fermilab accelerator...

 

[Dillinger4]

It was a Fermilab team who caused the magnets problem!

 

[kyser_soze]

Case closed.

 

[_pH_]

Poor Enrico, he'll be turning in his grave knowing this is what he's given his name to

 

[xenon]

Higgs Bowson.

I just wanted to say that.

 

[kyser_soze]

Higgs Boson...sorry, people have been doing that to you all week haven't they? Spelling corrections that is...

 

[Dillinger4]

You spelt it wrong.

 

[xenon]

Higgs Boson...sorry, people have been doing that to you all week haven't they? Spelling corrections that is...

Yep.


Just looked it up on Google again to get the vaguest notions of what it might do.

All I know is it's some kind of missing theoretical piece in the standard model of particle physics.

Yeah. that'll do for me.

 

[Crispy]

No way!! That's not the first time that's happened is it? Didn't some other science project go tits up for the same reason?

Yep a mars probe crashed into mars instead of orbiting it due to a metric/imperial mixup.

 

[yardbird]

No way!! That's not the first time that's happened is it? Didn't some other science project go tits up for the same reason?

Wasn't that part of the prob with the Hubble Telescope?

 

[Dillinger4]

I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Wasn't that part of the prob with the Hubble Telescope?

Nope, that was a bad test bed that caused the mirror to be made in the wrong shape iirc.

A mars probe kamikazed because of metric / imperial units, probably thinking of that.

 

[ChrisFilter]

I might be a million miles off, but I think my Dad works in a complex with a Hadron Collider, near Abingdon?

 

[Stigmata]

It can't possibly go wrong.

 

[gnoriac]

WANT!!1! (no idea why I WANT!!1!, i just do, ok?)

And have you thought what your mum's gonna say when the £1billion electricity bill lands on the doormat?

 

[friedaweed]

I've made something very similar to this in my garage
It's built with a zx spectrum at the core of it's technology and i used parts from my old beta-max video recorder, a Vauxhall Zafira and some chicken wire i had left over from a papier mache project.

I'm going to test it Sunday if anyone wants to pop round.

 

[_pH_]

And have you thought what your mum's gonna say when the £1billion electricity bill lands on the doormat?

Pfft. Nothing to do with her, she lives 300 miles away

 

[alsoknownas]

Yeah I heard that (in metro and the sun of all places). Bit boring only being able to go back as far as when it was switched on. Convenient for the god botherers.

'slike that film 'Primer', innit?

 

[DotCommunist]

so long as god doesn't strike us down when it is fired up, it'll be another reason to say 'ha! in your pwnt fucking face religion!, science owns you on the deeper mysteries of reality AGAIN!'

 

[Sasaferrato]

This is how big'n'awesome LHC is Soj....

Wow!

The scale of the process is minute though, in terms of particle size.

I wonder if there is a possibility of a chain reaction?

 

[Teepee]

They should start with a small hadron collider first just to be on the safe side

 

[Sasaferrato]

And have you thought what your mum's gonna say when the £1billion electricity bill lands on the doormat?

You would black out a city.

How much power does the thing draw?

Why is so much more energy required for each increment of acceleration as you get close to the speed of light?

 

[Teepee]

You would black out a city.

How much power does the thing draw?

Why is so much more energy required for each increment of acceleration as you get close to the speed of light?

*mumbles something about relativity*
*legs it*

 

[Bob_the_lost]

You would black out a city.

How much power does the thing draw?

Why is so much more energy required for each increment of acceleration as you get close to the speed of light?

Okeydokey. Think of a car accelerating, as you get faster it gets harder to accelerate you as the air resistance gets greater. Still with me? Accelerating a particle close to light speed is nothing like this, there are no comforting analogies, it just is. Physics is shit at times.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Okeydokey. Think of a car accelerating, as you get faster it gets harder to accelerate you as the air resistance gets greater. Still with me? Accelerating a particle close to light speed is nothing like this, there are no comforting analogies, it just is. Physics is shit at times.

It is something that I've never had an answer to, not that I could understand.

An actuary friend, who has a PhD in mathematics, wrote me down a formula. Unfortunately, he wrote in Russian in Arabic script.

 

[gnoriac]

Why is so much more energy required for each increment of acceleration as you get close to the speed of light?

Because its mass increases enormously the closer it gets to the speed of light, eventually becoming infinite (?). Except if it's a photon because it has no mass and it's already at the speed of light anyway.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Because its mass increases enormously the closer it gets to the speed of light, eventually becoming infinite (?). Except if it's a photon because it has no mass and it's already at the speed of light anyway.

Strange beast a photon, no mass but does have energy.

 

[_pH_]

Because its mass increases enormously the closer it gets to the speed of light, eventually becoming infinite (?). Except if it's a photon because it has no mass and it's already at the speed of light anyway.

If mass increases as velocity nears the speed of light, won't the particles in the LHC become so massive that they end up having their own gravitational field?

...leading to them becoming a black hole!!!!

*runs away screaming*

So we are doomed after all!!