Feb 192010
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From the BBC:
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be switched on again next week, according to the laboratory that operates it.
The particle accelerator was shut down for the Christmas period shortly after setting the record for the highest particle energies ever attained.
Over the coming months, scientists aim to smash that record again as the experiments aim for energies of some seven trillion electron volts (TeV).
In the ensuing weeks, the energies will be increased, past last year’s record of 2.36 TeV and toward the 7 TeV goal.
8 Responses to “Large Hadron Collider to come back online after break”
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Someone wrote a article (I assume semi-seriously, but as strange as physics has gotten, who knows?) about the possibility that the LHC is trying to prevent itself from being built by manipulating the past from the future:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/10/is-a-time-travelling-higgs-sab.html
I like science, but that is my kind of distraction right there.
Jim
Why is that enthusiastic scientists are depicted as “mad” or old and madf?
The image of the two guys in lab coats in front of the mushroom cloud is straight out of the hate-the-bomb era. Remember that nuclear explosions are large, on an astronomical scale, only when they happen in one’s back yard. I’ve always found that thought to be faintly offensive: just because one knows how to do calculus on a slide rule does not automatically make then a destructive monster.
One of the characters in the book “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” was a Congressmen who hated the thought of spending Federal money on scientific research on “the molecular changes in bread as it’s toasted.”
The girl? I like the thought, but if she’s not doing that to me, she doesn’t exist.
I have always been tempted to push those buttons.
Let’s fire up the LHC! Maybe we can see this: http://xkcd.com/702/
It’s irritating to read stories about the LHC, given the United States was building the SSC 15 years ago. If we had finished that job, there would be no LHC.
> Why is that enthusiastic scientists are depicted as “mad” or old and madf?
Because science is really crashingly dull (certainly so to the non-scientific public), and only gets interesting when you jazz it up some. Since science – especially advanced state-of-the-art science – is something that most people simply do not understand, it comes off as magic. And magical wizards have also always been depicted as nutty.
> just because one knows how to do calculus on a slide rule does not automatically make then a destructive monster.
Scientists discover the physics behind the weapons. Engineers design and build the weapons. Liberal arts majors decide to use the weapons.
While there have certainly been nutty and evil engineers through history (like Stack yesterday… though he was a “software engineer,” which to my mind ain’t real engineering), most of history’s greatest monsters have been liberal arts types. Painters, seminary students, community organizers… shun them all when it comes to politics.
And me… I like blowin’ stuff up. I see the atom bomb as one of mankind’s crowning achievements. Think about it.. we entered a war in 1939 where horse-bound cavalry charges made sense to somebody, armies fought with bolt-action rifles, many airplanes were still wooden fabric-covered biplanes… and seven years later we had hypersonic, space-going vehicles, jet propelled aircraft, heat-seeking air-to-air missiles, TV guided bombs. And best of all, the Japanese *so* pissed off the US that we demolished the secrets of Creation in order to lay down a case of whoopass on ’em the likes of which the world had never before even *imagined.* Freakin’ AWESOME.
And if’n y’all don’t like the mushroom cloud image of science… howsabout these:
You’re a much better writer than I, Scott, concerning the use of technology. I agree with you about the coolness of the atom bomb. Hell, I agree with all you said. I was trying to stir things up, I suppose, and moaning about the lack of understanding of culture that hating the bomb exposes.
So it comes down to liberal arts majors being the destructive monsters? I can adopt that as a part of my personal culture, easily. I have about 60 hours of liberal arts classes (mostly history), and damn near none of the professors had a clear idea of the real world outside the classroom. I spent 80 hours in computer systems classes, and almost all of those guys were either ex-Navy or retired Army. (The two Indians couldn’t speak English well enough for me to know them, but they were born damn good programmers — or so the school administration told itself.) There’s something about the potential for imminent death that focuses the mind.
I think my objection to the use of the mushroom cloud is that any large explosion results in a mushroom cloud. We need something more specific.
I suggest the V-2 or the CV Enterprise.
I can imagine a t-shirt: top image is the atom (the nucleus and a couple of electrons), beside that is “Discovered by scientists.” Middle image is a slide rule crossing a wrench, with “Designed and built by engineers.” Bottom image is an AK-47 crossing a red flag, with “Used by liberal arts majors.”
Fair boggles the mind. Only the liberal arts majors are truly dangerous.
Have a nice day, and sleep well.
Hopefully she will be able to tidy up again, afterwords, so we can’t find anything.
Admin said:
“and seven years later we had hypersonic, space-going vehicles, jet propelled aircraft, heat-seeking air-to-air missiles, TV guided bombs.”
Don’t forget the Bat glide bomb with its fully active radar homing system; we took out a Japanese destroyer with one of those from 20 miles away in 1945.
Did anyone get a heat seeking AAM into operation during WWII?
The Germans had the Madrid IR homing system for the Enzian SAM, but I don’t know if that even got tested in a operational form; the X-4 used wire guidance and the Hs-298 radio command guidance, both manually steered from the launch aircraft.