Today was the grand-opening of the CERN Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. The LHC is the world's largest supercollider, located in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is shown from above in the first photo, it is the giant circle on the ground. The second photo is the inside of "ATLAS", one of the particle detectors of the LHC. Look at that guy standing in the middle. This thing is HUGE!
Supercolliders are essentially gigantic race tracks, except instead of cars there are beams of particles that crash into each other. These particles can tell us almost anything about the universe, and supercolliders are the keystone of particle physics. Here is the official CERN press release regarding today's trial run of the LHC. They haven't actually collided any particles yet, today they just shot a beam of protons around in the circle a few times.
The actual collisions have caused a lot of debate and will continue to terrify the uninformed until they are actually tested on October 21st. Some physicists have theorized that the LHC will create a black hole that will engulf the Earth, killing us all.
In case the video isn't working on the blog, here is a LINK to the movie on YouTube.
Don't worry, its not going to happen. Here is a CERN article explaining exactly how safe the test really is. The black holes that could possibly be created, as theorized, would either disappear immediately or cause no macroscopic damage while remaining on Earth.
The following video is a TED Talk about the LHC from March, which explains exactly what is so special about this linear accelerator in particular.
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The LHC will be able to detect the Higgs Field, or Higgs Particles, explained very well at time 7:38 in the video. If these particles are discovered, we will be able to use the Standard Model to answer any possible question in the universe. This is a HUGE step for physics, and the world in general.The blue picture shows particles colliding in a linear accelerator. Each of those little lines is the path that a particle flew on upon collision.
Here comes the politics. The LHC was a product of more than two decades of work from over 85 countries all over the world. Our tax dollars have paid for it for years, and it isn't even taking place in our country. I believe that the LHC is perfectly safe, but many people on the web (see the comments of the YouTube video) think that it should not be used. However, we have not actually studied black holes up close. We don't know what's going to happen when the first collision takes place. There is a chance, unbelievably small as it may be, that something horrible could happen. Even if the world doesn't end, it will be changed forever. The possibilities of what can be done once the Higgs Particle is confirmed are endless. The world as we know it will be different by late October. There was no global conference on whether this experiment should proceed or not, we didn't really have a say in the matter at all.
Do you guys think it's fair that such a world-changing event is going to take place without some sort of global discussion? I am glad that the experiment is taking place, but also wonder whether there should have been more democracy involved in this. There is a point where democracy is unreasonable because of the scale of things, and I guess "whole world" is a little bit too large a group to get votes from. What do you guys think?
And for all of you green tree-huggers out there, the LHC uses 1000 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, about 1/3 of the energy PRODUCED in the entire United States. This is a single scientific experiment that is eating up the equivalent of 1/3 of the nation's electricity. What do you say to that?
4 comments:
LHC's search for the Higgs Boson is certainly one of the most important physics experiments of this decade (if not the century). The Standard Model is useless without the existence of Higgs Boson because it is the hypothetical particle that gives mass to other particles. Personally, I doubt that the LHC (I could be speaking too soon here) would be able to find a Higgs Boson because only one is needed in this universe to make the Model work. Nevertheless, this project is an important advancement in scientific research. Interestingly, here is a related article about Professor Hawking's view on the project.
In regards to the question about the energy consumption of the LHC, I found a page that gives the energy usage of the LHC. It seems that the LHC only uses 10% of the total energy consumption of the canton of Geneva. While it is still a vast amount of energy, I feel comfortable knowing that it will be used in a noble experiment.
Personally, I am intrigued by the entire concept of the LHC smashing particles together and I agree with Nelson in that the energy will be indeed used for a "noble experiment".
But if you think about it, is there any clear practical use for the LHC aside from the pursuit of knowledge? Will all this energy use really benefit the world as a whole? I doubt that it would create a black hole large enough to destroy earth. While I didnt read your CERN article on the LHC's safety (sorry Ben), I'd have to say that there is no way some particles can create a density so insanely high that it would create a black hole of such enormous proportions.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see the results of these tests and experiments on October 21st before any real conclusions can be drawn as this is unprecedented in science. You never know. CERN did, after all, pretty much invent the World Wide Web and it's pretty clear how useful that turned out to be... Maybe we're about to experience another scientific revolution.
Jeff's question, "Will all this energy use really benefit the world as a whole?" has an amazing answer. Yes.
If the LHC is able to discover the Higgs-boson, or "God-Particle", and the Standard Model proves to be accurate, we will have a formula to answer any question we can pose. Why is DNA a double-helix? Why does AIDS behave so differently from other diseases? Is it possible to achieve cold fusion and attain a limitless clean energy source?
The LHC has the potential to open up an amount of knowledge that we can't even imagine yet, and it's applications will be all but limitless.
For further information and a snazzy rap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM
Mr. Kleiner showed this class, I thought it was definately worth sharing (at least for laughs).
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