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What they actually mean is:. CERN has never been involved in research on nuclear power or nuclear weapons, but has done much to increase our understanding of the fundamental structure of the atom. The title CERN is actually an historical remnant, from the name of the council that was founded to establish a European organisation for world-class physics research.
Firstly, CERN and the scientists and engineers working there and their research have no interest in weapons research. They are dedicated in trying to understand how the world works, and most definitely not how to destroy it. Secondly, the high energy particle beams produced at the LHC require a huge machine consuming MW of power and holds 91 tonnes of super-cooled liquid helium.
The beams themselves have a lot of energy the equivalent of an entire Eurostar train travelling at top speed but they can only be maintained in a vacuum. If released into the atmosphere, the beam would immediately interact with atoms in the air and dissipate all their energy in an extremely short distance. The LHC does produce very high energies, but these energy levels are restricted to tiny volumes inside the detectors.
Many high energy particles, from collisions, are produced every second, but the detectors are designed to track and stop all particles except neutrinos as capturing all the energy from collisions is essential to identifying what particles have been produced.
The vast majority of energy from the collisions is absorbed by the detectors, meaning, very little of the energy from collisions is able to escape. Collisions with energies far higher than the ones in the experiment are quite common in the universe!
Electric and magnetic fields are the key to a particle accelerator: because protons are positively charged, they accelerate when in an electric field and bend in a circle in a magnetic field. Ramp: Once the LHC is fully loaded, its two proton beams are slowly accelerated up to collision energy, now a world-record 6.
Accelerating billions of protons to close to the speed of light, directing them all the way around the LHC, and then colliding them head-on, is a delicate balancing act performed by high voltage equipment and giant magnets.
This is an amazing technical achievement. Indeed one of the main applications of particle physics research is in the industrial applications of the technology it develops along the way, from proton therapy cancer treatment to the world wide web.
But for me, the excitement is in the science: the LHC is exploring the universe at the smallest scales. Everything we have learned so far is formulated in the Standard Model , a theory which describes the universe made of tiny particles, and gives the rules for how these particles behave. By smashing some of these particles together at high energy, we are able to test these rules and make new discoveries. This particle was predicted in the s and plays a central role in the Standard Model.
But it was almost 50 years before we had a machine powerful enough to discover it. The LHC will allow scientists to observe particle collisions at an energy level far higher than any previous experiment. Some people worry that such powerful reactions could cause serious trouble for the Earth. District Court.
What is the basis for their concerns? Could the LHC create something that could end all life as we know it? What exactly might happen? One fear is that the LHC could produce black holes. Black holes are regions in which matter collapses into a point of infinite density.
CERN scientists admit that the LHC could produce black holes, but they also say those black holes would be on a subatomic scale and would collapse almost instantly. In contrast, the black holes astronomers study result from an entire star collapsing in on itself. There's a big difference between the mass of a star and that of a proton. Another concern is that the LHC will produce an exotic and so far hypothetical material called strangelets.
One possible trait of strangelets is particularly worrisome. Cosmologists theorize that strangelets could possess a powerful gravitational field that might allow them to convert the entire planet into a lifeless hulk.
Scientists at LHC dismiss this concern using multiple counterpoints. First, they point out that strangelets are hypothetical. No one has observed such material in the universe. Second, they say that the electromagnetic field around such material would repel normal matter rather than change it into something else.
Third, they say that even if such matter exists, it would be highly unstable and would decay almost instantaneously. Fourth, the scientists say that high-energy cosmic rays should produce such material naturally.
Since the Earth is still around, they theorize that strangelets are a non-issue. Another theoretical particle the LHC might generate is a magnetic monopole. Theorized by P. Dirac, a monopole is a particle that holds a single magnetic charge north or south instead of two.
The concern Wagner and Sancho cited is that such particles could pull matter apart with their lopsided magnetic charges. CERN scientists disagree, saying that if monopoles exist, there's no reason to fear that such particles would cause such destruction. In fact, at least one team of researchers is actively looking for evidence of monopoles with the hopes that the LHC will produce some. Other concerns about the LHC include fears of radiation and the fact that it will produce the highest energy collisions of particles on Earth.
CERN states that the LHC is extremely safe, with thick shielding that includes meters feet of earth on top of it. In addition, personnel are not allowed underground during experiments. As for the concern about collisions, scientists point out that high-energy cosmic ray collisions happen all the time in nature. Rays collide with the sun , moon and other planets, all of which are still around with no sign of harm.
With the LHC, those collisions will happen within a controlled environment. Otherwise, there's really no difference. Will the LHC succeed in furthering our knowledge about the universe?
Will the data collected raise more questions than it answers? If past experiments are any indication, it's probably a safe bet to assume the answer to both of these questions is yes.
To learn more about the Large Hadron Collider, particle accelerators and related topics, accelerate over to the links on the next page. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close.
Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Science Vs. Everyday Myths. How the Large Hadron Collider Works. Engineers install a giant magnet inside the Large Hadron Collider, an enormous particle accelerator.
Big Bang on a Small Scale. Everything You Know Is Wrong. LHC by the Numbers " ". Image courtesy CERN. What's Cooler Than Being Cool? LHC: Smashing Protons " ". More Particles. The LHC Detectors " ". Computing the LHC Data " ". Tier 0 is CERN's computing system, which will first process information and divide it into chunks for the other tiers.
Twelve Tier 1 sites located in several countries will accept data from CERN over dedicated computer connections. These connections will be able to transmit data at 10 gigabytes per second.
The Tier 1 sites will further process data and divide it up to send further down the grid. More than Tier 2 sites will connect with the Tier 1 sites. Most of these sites are universities or scientific institutions. Each site will have multiple computers available to process and analyze data. As each processing job completes, the sites will push data back up the tier system. The connection between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is a standard network connection. June 17,
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