Posted on 12/03/2018 11:28:30 AM PST by ETL
Scientists will use the break in operations to beef up the accelerator’s energy.
The world’s most powerful particle accelerator has gone quiet. Particles took their last spin around the Large Hadron Collider on December 3 before scientists shut the machine down for two years of upgrades.
Located at the particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva, the accelerator has smashed together approximately 16 million billion protons since 2015, when it reached its current energy of 13 trillion electron volts. Planned improvements before the machine restarts in 2021 will bring the energy up to 14 trillion electron volts — the energy it was originally designed to reach.
During a round of lower-energy collisions between 2009 and 2013, researchers found the elusive Higgs boson, filling in the last missing piece of the standard model of particle physics (SN: 7/28/12, p. 5).
The planned adjustments to the machine will also lay the groundwork for another incarnation of the collider further in the future, known as the High-Luminosity LHC (SN Online: 6/15/18). That upgrade, expected to be ready by 2026, will increase the rate of proton smashups by at least a factor of five.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
Now, where in the heck am I going to go to get a good milkshake?
Cleaning out the carbon build up ?
Looks like a waste of money to me.
How many windmills are they using to run that?
That’s going to set Dr. Sheldon Cooper’s research back...for a decade! ;)
Science is stupid.
How many large Hadrons did they finally collide?................
Can be. Though physics and mathematics are gifts from God.
Since you describe yourself as “old”, did you say the same to Newton and others since the Dark Ages concluded?
I was being sarcastic.
The LHC is one of mankind's greatest engineering feats. It's a shame we didn't build it. We could have at one time. Not today.
Science is so much fun. And so useful. How void the earth would be if we didn’t know about Higgs? Would we have gone to the Moon without knowing? Oh, we did. Well, could we have the ISS? Oh, we did. Well, anyway, I’m sure it is of great use to, dare I say it ... Mankind? No, I dare not because that wouldn’t be right, would it? And the LHC proves it. Wink Wink!
*ping*
Were they operating during the Alaska earthquake or the magma wave?
Were they operating during the Alaska earthquake or the magma wave?
And we will never completely know and understand physics. It is simply an impossibility. Probably follows and exponential curve in complexity. With each new discovery, the following discovery is that more complicated and complicated prove. It is Heisenbergs equation. Toss in Schrodinger’s cat experiment.
To the contrary, the discovery of Higgs large bosoms is of infinite interest to mankind.
I mean what true red blooded man would tire of observing these phenomeal events?
LOL! Nice one.
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