Huge Atom Smasher Reaches Highest Energy Levels Yet

[hue]

http://www.livescience.com/19182-lhc-particle-accelerator-highest-energy.html

The world's largest particle accelerator has ramped up particles to higher energies than ever before, scientists announced Monday (March 19).
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a 17-mile-long (27 kilometer) underground ring near Geneva, Switzerland, where protons are sped up to near the speed of light and then slammed into each other. The faster the particles go, the more energy they have.
In recent tests, LHC achieved energies of 4 teraelectron volts (TeV), a significant improvement over its current record of 3.5 TeV. Ultimately the machine, the most powerful of its kind, is designed to accelerate particles to 7 TeV, though to reach those energies, scientists are planning to shut down LHC for a refurbishment in late 2012.
After the successful tests, LHC will likely run particle collisions at 4 TeV starting in early April, officials said.
"Increasing the energy at which particles in the LHC collide allows physicists to probe new areas of physics," LHC officials wrote in a statement.

[longship]

1. Hooray for CERN! We could have been there already

If it wasn't for the Repugnant party and The Republican War on Science the US would still be leading the world in particle physics.

But that Repugnant political (ahem, fundamentalist religious) party doesn't like science. They look at science as a threat to their end of times philosophies.

No! They won't make these political footballs in the upcoming campaigns but there is a definitive [link:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/20/get-out-says-ethnic-cleansing-pastor-does-rick-santorum-agree.html|

[hue]

2. Wow! Thanks for your excellent response!! So true!! This is the year of the Higgs!!! n/t