Large Hadron Collider restarts after two-year rebuild

[Surya Gayatri]

Source: BBC News

The Large Hadron Collider has restarted, with protons circling the machine's 27km tunnel for the first time since 2013.

Particle beams have now travelled in both directions, inside parallel pipes, at a whisker below the speed of light.

Actual collisions will not begin for at least another month, but they will take place with nearly double the energy the LHC reached during its first run.

Scientists hope to glimpse a "new physics" beyond the Standard Model.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32160755

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"Researchers here believe that the new, super-charged LHC will lead to the biggest revolution in physics since Einstein's theories of relativity", reports Pallab Ghosh

[hue]

1. Thanks for posting this! Physics is always the light of hope!

I'm hoping issues will be resolved in Japan for the building of the International Linear Collider which will smash positrons against electrons. It will be a SUSY factory!

[Surya Gayatri]

2. SCIENCE RULZ...!

Have you seen this? The guys at CERN are wicked fuunny, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026447077

[Red1]

3. Be Nice

To have fusion run the new power generators of the century.

-get rid of coal
-get rid of koch..well maybe only partially..

[Surya Gayatri]

4. i can haz Large Hadron Collider? Oh, nos, turn it off!!!

[mindwalker_i]

13. Contrary to popular opinion

Physicists don't spend all their time trying to create Schroedinger's cat.

In Soviet Russia, Schroedinger's cat creates itself!

[Surya Gayatri]

14. Exist, he does...or doesn't he? LOL!

[hifiguy]

20. Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger are driving down the highway

when a trooper pulls them over.

"Do you know how fast you were going?" says the cop.

"Nein, but I know exzactly vhere I am!" says Heisenberg.

"You were going 106 miles per hour!!!" says the cop.

"Great, now ve are completely lost" replies Heisenberg.

The cop looks over at Schrodinger and says "mind if I take a look in the trunk?"

"Nein."

"There's a dead cat in here! Care to explain that?"

"Vell, he is dead now, dummkopf!"

The single nerdiest joke I know.

[Surya Gayatri]

21. You....

And, I've already heard it or something similar. LOL!

[drm604]

5. I like how they resolved the problem that was holding things up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32133876

The short circuit delaying the restart of the Large Hadron Collider has been fixed, after a blast of high current melted the metal particle responsible.
...
The short circuit was caused by a tiny piece of metal debris, which found its way into the pipes and became lodged in the wiring of one of the LHC's powerful electromagnets.
...
"Maybe the safest mechanism would have been to warm up the machine and go in there and clean it out - but that would have been a very long process," Dr Collier said.

So instead they tried something new: passing nearly 400 amps of current directly through the short circuit, for just a few milliseconds - "in the same way you would blow a fuse".

[Surya Gayatri]

6. These guys are so brilliant it's frightening!

[Tab]

7. I can barely comprehend how complex this piece of engineering is. Actually, I probably can't at all

I can barely wrap the precision and timing and magnitude around my head, deep physics aside.

[Surya Gayatri]

8. Mere mortals can only marvel...

[Tab]

9. I'm not posting my real identity here but here's a clue:

I'm not Sheldon Cooper.

[Surya Gayatri]

10. Are you Obi Wan....Yoda....?

Did you catch this great April Fools?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026447077

[Tab]

11. That's funny, but you can tell it's a fake

Kenobi says he first started teaching the ways of the Force to a young lady who was having trouble revising for her particle-physics exams. "She said that I was her only hope," says Kenobi. "So I just kinda took it from there. I designed an experiment to detect the Force, and passed on my knowledge."

Properly it should have said "Her only hope, she said that I was" and "Took it from there, I just kinda did" and "Detect the force, an experiment I did design" and "Pass on my knowledge, I did". Proper english (or lack of it) is a giveaway.

It was a cute article.

[Surya Gayatri]

12. Hey, Mr. Kenobi (Obi Wan) didn't talk like that. He was

a well-spoken Englishman. The syntax murderer was Yoda!

[longship]

15. The ATLAS detector is the size of a ten story office block.

Here it is:

Note the human sized icons in the foreground.

It is 46 meters long by 25 meters in diameter. That is some serious shit going on there. The grad students spent months wiring the thing. (Best use for them. )

Under construction (a human standing in the foreground):


It is really difficult to get a good view of ATLAS. It is just too damned large. But here's another.

[Surya Gayatri]

17. I know, just mind blowing...

[eggplant]

16. Physicists are just following our natural human tendencies...

...of discovering the nature of things by smashing them together. Rocks, cars, particles, ...

[Lionel Mandrake]

18. Sparticles, anyone?

Last time around, the LHC experimentalists found the Higgs boson. This time, who knows?

The experimentalists may discover nothing at all, which would mean the death of high energy physics. Or they may discover supersymmetric analogs of known particles: selectrons, squarks, gluinos, sneutrinos, etc. Some of these sparticles are candidates for dark matter.

Right now, the LHC at CERN is where the action is in high energy physics.

[Surya Gayatri]

22. A whole subatomic zoo, just waiting to

come out and say 'Oh, Hai!' We're here!

[hifiguy]

19. Very cool.

Theoretical physics is my latest obsession. If I had gotten the math gene most people on the spectrum have I would have become a cosmologist or theoretical physicist rather than going to law school. Unfortunately I am pretty mathlexic.

Perhaps they will at last find proof of the Higgs boson.

[Surya Gayatri]

23. I'm a mathematical basket case, but love this stuff!

[Lionel Mandrake]

25. Have you seen the movie "Particle Fever"?

This movie is all about the LHC and the discovery of the Higgs boson. It was in the theaters for a while. Now it streams on Netflix.

[Surya Gayatri]

28. Thanks, LM, for the shout out. I'm always on the prowl

for good science docs.

I'll be looking for it to stream on line.

[Surya Gayatri]

29. Just so you know, thanks to your suggestion, I DID

find it on line. Gorgeous doc. Nobody does it better than the Beeb.

[7962]

24. Sheldon & the gang will be elated!

I'll do my best to try to understand it at all!

[Little Tich]

26. It's a nice machine, but can it make coffee?

Jokes aside, I'm glad the LHC is up and running again. Perhaps we'll finally find out what dark matter really is.

[PoliticAverse]

27. Or maybe it will destroy the earth...

but probably not.

[Lionel Mandrake]

30. Certainly not.

The energies attainable by the LHC (or any other present or future machine) are far below those of some cosmic rays which have been bombarding the Earth, Moon, etc. for billions of years without causing a catastrophe (such as a macroscopic black hole). Only cranks take seriously the suggestion that the LHC might destroy the Earth.

[Tab]

31. A good description of the magnitude of this thing

http://www.popsci.com/how-it-works-large-hadron-collider

[Surya Gayatri]

32. You're a DUer after my own heart, Tab...

I'm just blown away by this thing. I live in France and would love to tour it in person.

But, in the meantime, thanks lots for this 'layman's' explanation.

[Snow Leopard]

33. Love this stuff!

Very interested to see what they find out. I was watching some youtubes on this and the Higgs. Amazing how many videos think this is an evil plan to open a portal to allow satan back on earth!! Lol!! So on the one hand you have the best of humanity, and the other you go "we are doomed".😀

[Surya Gayatri]

34. Look for 'PARTICAL FEVER'. You can stream it on line.

[Snow Leopard]

35. Thank you!

Watched it on Sunday, very cool movie.