Posted on 11/08/2010 9:22:04 AM PST by lbryce
The latest experiment at CERN went ahead despite warnings by a group called Heavy Ion Alert that it could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction that might destroy the Earth.
The reaction created temperatures a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun, which have not been reached since the first billionths of a second following the Big Bang.
This was expected to cause atomic particles such as protons and neutrons to melt, producing a "soup" of matter in a state previously unseen on Earth.
Scientists, including British particle physicists, will now study the particles in the hope of discovering what holds atoms together and gives them their mass.
The collisions were produced by firing lead ions – atoms with their electrons removed – at incredible speeds in opposite directions around the LHC's underground tunnel at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, near Geneva.
The heavyweight particle collisions follow seven months of earlier experiments crashing protons – which are 200 times lighter than lead ions – at near-light speeds.
Dr David Evans, of Birmingham University, said on Sunday: "We are thrilled with the achievement. The collisions generated mini Big Bangs and the highest temperatures and densities ever achieved in an experiment.
"This process took place in a safe, controlled environment generating incredibly hot and dense subatomic fireballs with temperatures of over ten trillion degrees – a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun."
He added: "At these temperatures even protons and neutrons, which make up the nuclei of atoms, melt resulting in a hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as a Quark-Gluon Plasma.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I had sex with a lady midget once, ‘Mini Big Bang’ with Lead Pants
It happened. We’re gone.
This is all just an after-image.
The fading will start in the next few days.
You’ll feel a little light-headed at first but then...
...then, nothing.
"But not quite as hot as the center of the Earth." [/Al Gore]
I woke up this morning with a Large Hadron....
"..ya know, readin this headline upside down can cause immediate concern"
Which they know for certain, of course, even though they cannot predict tomorrow's weather with certainty.
Aside from wanting to see video of these experiments, can it make breakfast?
bttt
Did they ever find the missing black holes??
http://scienceray.com/astronomy/cern-missing-black-hole-raises-new-safety-concerns/
What kind of thermometer measures 10 trillion degrees?
*The latest experiment at CERN went ahead despite warnings by a group called Heavy Ion Alert that it could trigger a catastrophic chain reaction that might destroy the Earth....*
...But they thought, what the heck, it’ll be so much fun!
So is it up to full power or is there a ways to go?
How is this even possible? Does this mean we've created a metal that withstands the heat of the sun, or greater? I would think these kinds of temperatures would have melted the entire collider.
Were they able to create matter out of nothing? If not, then it wasn’t a “mini big-bang”.
It wasn’t that lagre! ;-P
A real long one.
Temperature is not an instantaneous thing. High temps for very short times is containable.
Very VERY small center of location for the reaction. Very VERY short time frame.
It would be there and gone before the materials had a chance to melt.
A magnetic bottle (an area surrounded by a magnetic field) around the point of the explosion would also help contain the heat.
Heat and temperature are different things.
You are routinely struck by cosmic ray particles with an effective temperature in the millions of degrees C.
But a single photon carries so little heat, so little energy that you simply didn’t notice.
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