LHC upgrade to open up 'new realm of particle physics'

bbc ^ | 2 April 2013 Last updated at 08:19 ET | Pallab Ghosh

[BenLurkin]

Engineers have begun a major upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Their work should double the energy of what's already the most powerful particle accelerator in the world.

This will enable researchers here to move on to their ultimate goal: to find evidence of "new physics", which they believe will lead to a new, more compete theory of sub-atomic physics.

The discovery of the Higgs last year was the end of a successful chapter of late 20th Century physics.

This was the development of the current theory in the 1960s and 70s called the "Standard Model".

This theory says that most of the forces of nature, the objects around us and our own existence, are all down to the interaction of the Higgs with 16 other particles. It successfully explains how electricity, magnetism and light operate.

Since then, all the particles predicted by the Standard Model have been discovered - including most recently the Higgs.

The problem though is scientists known this theory is limited. It explains extremely well the world around us, but it cannot explain the way most of the Universe behaves.

[BenLurkin]

Engineer Katy Foraz shows Pallab Ghosh how to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider

[Yossarian]

I want tight control over this thing - I'll happily live with an incomplete knowledge of how "everything works" to make sure we don't cause a physics calamity here on Earth.

Most discoveries in science come not from someone saying "Eureka!", they come from a scientist saying "What the...". I don't want a WTF moment coming from such a high-energy collision, thank you very much.

[BenLurkin]

You mean like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xrpj5GTFV4

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

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[dr_lew]

The discovery of the Higgs last year was the end of a successful chapter of late 20th Century physics.

This discovery is so abstract, being a statistical analysis of trillions upon trillions of events, that there is literally nothing to show for it. Not one of these events involved the detection of a Higgs Boson, per se. Here is the photograph that constitutes the discovery of the positron in 1932, 4 years after it was hypothesized by Dirac. There it is. That's a discovery.

[Condor51]

When I read the article I got a tad squeamish when I saw 'Engineer' Katy Foraz say "lots and lots". Not to mention how the photo caption reads or it showing her wearing her Bicycle Helmet .
(or it's the funniest looking Hardhat I've seen in 43 years)

So I did some 'Binging' and found a few other interesting links like this other article with Hot Links embedded to some official reports 'Engineer' Katy Foraz has written going back to 2008 about the LCH, its construction, and ... uh .. quality control*.

I just skimmed through the first report (quality control link above) she wrote but from what I gathered it sure seems that what's going on here is not an 'upgrade', but as the critics say a costly repair which should have been caught during construction. This 'upgrade' is needed so the LCH can run at full capacity as it should have from day one. Its been running at 50% and now CERN is spinning this repair, oops 'upgrade', as doubling its power. (Huh?)

* you may get a 'security warning' from Firefox if you click the link to CERN but it is okay. Could be because the CERN server is in Switzerland.

[Moonman62]

Here is the photograph that constitutes the discovery of the positron in 1932, 4 years after it was hypothesized by Dirac. There it is. That's a discovery.

That's not a positron, per se.

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[LibWhacker]

Not familiar with the statistical analysis, but I’m guessing they would probably counter that indirect evidence is still evidence. That’s not as satisfying to me as direct evidence, but they have a point.

[dr_lew]

That's not a positron, per se.

Just as a contrail is not an airplane, I guess. But it's a sure trace of one. It's not a perfect analogy, because particle tracks are the only classical manifestation of the particle, which would otherwise remain in the realm of the noumenal.

With the J/Psi in the 1970's, and others I think, the discoveries were no longer tracks of particles, but "bumps" in interaction cross-sections vs. energy that indicated an interaction mediated by a particle of a particular mass, which could hardly be said to have existed. I think the Higgs discovery was an extreme version of this sort of thing.

[dr_lew]

Sure, it’s for real, I presume, but supremely unsatisfying. Like the expert knowing everything about nothing. This whole realm of thinking just stretches out into the aether.

The exciting thing is the machine itself, and the interactions it creates, which are largely quark-gluon plasm balls, AFAIU. There was talk at one point that they wouldn’t be able to see through the “fog” of these things. Not sure how that worked out.

[LibWhacker]

Sure, it’s for real, I presume, but supremely unsatisfying. Like the expert knowing everything about nothing. This whole realm of thinking just stretches out into the aether.

I'm going to put my foot down when they tell us their machines aren't sensitive enough to find indirect evidence for a certain thing, but that they do have indirect evidence that indirect evidence exists. That'll be too much even for me, lol!

Still steaming about Clinton nixing a LHC in Texas.