Posts Tagged ‘cern’
Large Hadron Collider grinds to a halt… again
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on December 2nd, 2009
Large Hadron Collider grinds to a halt... again originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Register | Email this | Comments Large Hadron Collider breaks energy record, still won’t power a toaster
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 30th, 2009
Large Hadron Collider breaks energy record, still won't power a toaster originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |BBC | Email this | Comments Large Hadron Collider reboots, makes first protonic bang!
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 24th, 2009
Large Hadron Collider reboots, makes first protonic bang! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |BBC News | Email this | Comments LHC First Particle Beams Collision Doesn’t Obliterate World, Universe [Science]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 23rd, 2009
Hey, we are alive! In the end we didn’t need any escape pods: The Large Hadron Collider has smashed two particle beams together for the first time. However, the unknown is still ahead of us, as they ramp things up:
Next on the schedule is an intense commissioning phase aimed at increasing the beam intensity and accelerating the beams. All being well, by Christmas, the LHC should reach 1.2 TeV per beam, and have provided good quantities of collision data for the experiments’ calibrations.
1.2 tera-electro volts? Great. Hookai, so, until Christmas you have two options: One, you can keep going on with your normal beige life, not taking any chances or risks, typing away in your hamster wheel. Two, remember that life can end at any moment, and get out of the wheel. To a beach. Preferably with another hamster. One with a nice butt and a pretty smile.
These are the computer images showing the first collisions:
Two circulating beams bring first collisions in the LHC
Geneva, 23 November 2009. Today the LHC circulated two beams simultaneously for the first time, allowing the operators to test the synchronization of the beams and giving the experiments their first chance to look for proton-proton collisions. With just one bunch of particles circulating in each direction, the beams can be made to cross in up to two places in the ring. From early in the afternoon, the beams were made to cross at points 1 and 5, home to the ATLAS and CMS detectors, both of which were on the lookout for collisions. Later, beams crossed at points 2 and 8, ALICE and LHCb.
“It’s a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time,” said CERN* Director General Rolf Heuer. “But we need to keep a sense of perspective – there’s still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme.”
Beams were first tuned to produce collisions in the ATLAS detector, which recorded its first candidate for collisions at 14:22 this afternoon. Later, the beams were optimised for CMS. In the evening, ALICE had the first optimisation, followed by LHCb.
“This is great news, the start of a fantastic era of physics and hopefully discoveries after 20 years’ work by the international community to build a machine and detectors of unprecedented complexity and performance,” said ATLAS spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti.
“The events so far mark the start of the second half of this incredible voyage of discovery of the secrets of nature,” said CMS spokesperson Tejinder Virdee.
“It was standing room only in the ALICE control room and cheers erupted with the first collisions,” said ALICE spokesperson Jurgen Schukraft. “This is simply tremendous.”
“The tracks we’re seeing are beautiful,” said LHCb spokesperson Andrei Golutvin, “we’re all ready for serious data taking in a few days time.”
These developments come just three days after the LHC restart, demonstrating the excellent performance of the beam control system. Since the start-up, the operators have been circulating beams around the ring alternately in one direction and then the other at the injection energy of 450 GeV. The beam lifetime has gradually been increased to 10 hours, and today beams have been circulating simultaneously in both directions, still at the injection energy.
Next on the schedule is an intense commissioning phase aimed at increasing the beam intensity and accelerating the beams. All being well, by Christmas, the LHC should reach 1.2 TeV per beam, and have provided good quantities of collision data for the experiments’ calibrations.
I’m happy it worked for you, people, because I’m for sure glad of not being sucked in by a Black Hole right now. Life is good, my dear boys and girls. Life is good.
LHC First Particle Beams Collision Doesn’t Obliterate World, Universe [Science]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 23rd, 2009
Hey, we are alive! In the end we didn’t need any escape pods: The Large Hadron Collider has smashed two particle beams together for the first time. However, the unknown is still ahead of us, as they ramp things up:
Next on the schedule is an intense commissioning phase aimed at increasing the beam intensity and accelerating the beams. All being well, by Christmas, the LHC should reach 1.2 TeV per beam, and have provided good quantities of collision data for the experiments’ calibrations.
1.2 tera-electro volts? Great. Hookai, so, until Christmas you have two options: One, you can keep going on with your normal beige life, not taking any chances or risks, typing away in your hamster wheel. Two, remember that life can end at any moment, and get out of the wheel. To a beach. Preferably with another hamster. One with a nice butt and a pretty smile.
These are the computer images showing the first collisions:
Two circulating beams bring first collisions in the LHC
Geneva, 23 November 2009. Today the LHC circulated two beams simultaneously for the first time, allowing the operators to test the synchronization of the beams and giving the experiments their first chance to look for proton-proton collisions. With just one bunch of particles circulating in each direction, the beams can be made to cross in up to two places in the ring. From early in the afternoon, the beams were made to cross at points 1 and 5, home to the ATLAS and CMS detectors, both of which were on the lookout for collisions. Later, beams crossed at points 2 and 8, ALICE and LHCb.
“It’s a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time,” said CERN* Director General Rolf Heuer. “But we need to keep a sense of perspective – there’s still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme.”
Beams were first tuned to produce collisions in the ATLAS detector, which recorded its first candidate for collisions at 14:22 this afternoon. Later, the beams were optimised for CMS. In the evening, ALICE had the first optimisation, followed by LHCb.
“This is great news, the start of a fantastic era of physics and hopefully discoveries after 20 years’ work by the international community to build a machine and detectors of unprecedented complexity and performance,” said ATLAS spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti.
“The events so far mark the start of the second half of this incredible voyage of discovery of the secrets of nature,” said CMS spokesperson Tejinder Virdee.
“It was standing room only in the ALICE control room and cheers erupted with the first collisions,” said ALICE spokesperson Jurgen Schukraft. “This is simply tremendous.”
“The tracks we’re seeing are beautiful,” said LHCb spokesperson Andrei Golutvin, “we’re all ready for serious data taking in a few days time.”
These developments come just three days after the LHC restart, demonstrating the excellent performance of the beam control system. Since the start-up, the operators have been circulating beams around the ring alternately in one direction and then the other at the injection energy of 450 GeV. The beam lifetime has gradually been increased to 10 hours, and today beams have been circulating simultaneously in both directions, still at the injection energy.
Next on the schedule is an intense commissioning phase aimed at increasing the beam intensity and accelerating the beams. All being well, by Christmas, the LHC should reach 1.2 TeV per beam, and have provided good quantities of collision data for the experiments’ calibrations.
I’m happy it worked for you, people, because I’m for sure glad of not being sucked in by a Black Hole right now. Life is good, my dear boys and girls. Life is good.
OK, Now I’m Nervous About the Large Hadron Collider [Blockquote]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 21st, 2009
I used to think that nothing would happen with the Large Hadron Collider. I even made fun of the nutters saying it's going to destroy the world. After reading CERN Director for Accelerators's latest statement, I'm not so sure:
The LHC is a far better understood machine than it was a year ago. We've learned from our experience, and engineered the technology that allows us to move on. That's how progress is made.
Wait wait wait. WAIT, Mr. Director for Accelerators Steve Myers Sir. What do you mean that the machine is "far better understood" now? How could they spend a billion brazillion dollars in this thing and don't understand it in the first place? Do we really know what are we up to here? Should I book a ticket to Costa Rica and go watch the end of the world from the beach?
The LHC is now circulating beams for the first time since September 2008, when it suffered a serious malfunction. It has taken them a year to repair it, which will explain the origin of the Universe or kick all our atomic asses out of it.
The LHC is back
Geneva, 20 November 2009. Particle beams are once again circulating in the world's most powerful particle accelerator, CERN*'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This news comes after the machine was handed over for operation on Wednesday morning. A clockwise circulating beam was established at ten o'clock this evening. This is an important milestone on the road towards first physics at the LHC, expected in 2010.
"It's great to see beam circulating in the LHC again," said CERN 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."
The LHC circulated its first beams on 10 September 2008, but suffered a serious malfunction nine days later. A failure in an electrical connection led to serious damage, and CERN has spent over a year repairing and consolidating the machine to ensure that such an incident cannot happen again.
"The LHC is a far better understood machine than it was a year ago," said CERN's Director for Accelerators, Steve Myers. "We've learned from our experience, and engineered the technology that allows us to move on. That's how progress is made."
Recommissioning the LHC began in the summer, and successive milestones have regularly been passed since then. The LHC reached its operating temperature of 1.9 Kelvin, or about -271 Celsius, on 8 October. Particles were injected on 23 October, but not circulated. A beam was steered through three octants of the machine on 7 November, and circulating beams have now been re-established. The next important milestone will be low-energy collisions, expected in about a week from now. These will give the experimental collaborations their first collision data, enabling important calibration work to be carried out. This is significant, since up to now, all the data they have recorded comes from cosmic rays. Ramping the beams to high energy will follow in preparation for collisions at 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam) next year.
Particle physics is a global endeavour, and CERN has received support from around the world in getting the LHC up and running again.
"It's been a herculean effort to get to where we are today," said Myers. "I'd like to thank all those who have taken part, from CERN and from our partner institutions around the world."
Large Hadron Collider is online, Higgs boson be damned
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 21st, 2009
Filed under: Science
Large Hadron Collider is online, Higgs boson be damned originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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MetaFilter | CERN, Twitter | Email this | Comments This Is Simply The Coolest Pop-Up Book Ever [Books]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on November 12th, 2009
It may not overheat in the presence of bread, but this pop-up book has the most accurate paper Large Hadron Collider ever. Figures that a book would make ending the world by firing that bad boy up look fun.
The book's called Voyage To The Heart Of Matter – The Atlas Experiment At CERN and it's written by Emma Sanders and crafted by Anton Radevsky. It'll be out at the end of November and run for about $33. I just want one because it'll satisfy both the physics dork and the bookworm inside me all at once. [Atlas via Shiny Shiny via OhGizmo!]
Confirmed: CERN Is Just a Huge Half-Life Level [CERN]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on October 30th, 2009
Plenty of people have given CERN and Half-Life's Black Mesa research facility the This Thing Looks Like That Thing treatment, but this tour of the facility's deepest bowels is just too much. Steam geysers? Endless corridors? Rusty valves? Slime growths?
Separate from the LHC itself, CERN's labs are sprawling and fairly old, so it's understandable if they're a little industrio-creepy. Which they are!
But considering the facilities are intended for similar purposes (in theory), and the CERN already employs a real-life Gordon Freeman, the likeness here is just uncanny, as if CERN ripped the models and textures from Valve's FPS and somehow actualized them. (Or, you know, the other way around, which actually makes sense.) Check out the full gallery at: [CERNLove via Reddit]
Might Higgs boson be a time-traveling ne’er do well out to destroy the LHC?
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on October 14th, 2009
According to a paper published earlier this month, a simple deck of cards could be made, either out of construction paper or, if you're feeling high tech, simulated on a computer. The deck would have one card indicating that the LHC should be shut down, and a much larger number of cards (maybe 100 million or so) that indicate that everything is good to go. If you draw the death card, as it were, you can bet that the shadowy hand of the Higgs boson is stretching back in time, telling you to halt the operation. Between all this and the proposed hyperdrive propulsion tests we came across a couple days ago, things are starting to get very Philip K. Dick over at CERN. Can we make one suggestion? Instead of a random number generator, why not Tarot cards? Or a Ouija board? You know, go for a Halloween vibe.
[Via New Scientist]
Filed under: Science
Might Higgs boson be a time-traveling ne'er do well out to destroy the LHC? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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