"My God, it's full of stars!"
Posted on 03/31/2010 12:41:00 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Scientists celebrated at the world's biggest atom smasher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva on Tuesday as they started colliding particles at record energy levels mimicking conditions close to the Big Bang, opening a new era in the quest for the secrets of the universe.
The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said it had unleashed the unprecedented bursts of energy on the third attempt, as beams of protons thrust around the 27-kilometre (16.8-mile) accelerator collided at close to the speed of light.
"This is physics in the making, the beginning of a new era, we have collisions at 7 TeV (teralectronvolts)," said Paola Catapano, a CERN scientist and spokeswoman, referring to the record energy levels achieved.
This, the third attempt, triggered collisions among the 20 billion protons in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at 1.06 pm (1106 GMT), creating powerful but microscopic bursts of energy that mimic conditions close to the Big Bang that created the universe.
"We're within a billionth of a second of the Big Bang," CERN spokesman James Gillies told AFP. The new stage, dubbed "First Physics", marks only the beginning of an initial 18- to 24-month series of billions of such collisions.
The LHC, which is located in a tunnel under the Franco-Swiss border, ground to halt with a major breakdown within days of its launch in 2008. But the huge scientific experiment then passed several groundbreaking milestones since it was restarted from repairs last November.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailygalaxy.com ...
But the lights are all emitting photons at near-light-speed. Or something.
Should we be scared if they show only blackness?
OK, I got them working now, and my joke isn’t quite as funny.
LOL. You didn't hear about the turtle that was running so fast its shell caught on fire?
So then,
it’s NOT TRUE that things approaching the speed of light are similarly approaching infinite mass?
Much appreciated.
What I’m understanding from all that is that
the Einstein thing about mass approaching the speed of light is wrong and does NOT likewise approach infinite mass.
No, he was right. The fact that the mass of the proton mas increases by a factor of 7,500 is fairly amazing. If a 100 pound weakling made the same speed, he (or she) would weigh 375 tons. Granted, that's not "infinite," but it's also not going the speed of light in a vacuum.
The fact that the mass increases is why it takes so much energy to impart more speed, once one gets to relativistic velocities. At this velocity, slight increases in velocity create significant increases in mass.
Said another way, the "TeV" limit results in a mass (and corresponding speed) limit. It would take infinite energy to obtain infinite mass.
OK.
I *THINK* I understand, now.
The mass is increasing dramatically . . . but only because of the dramatic amount of energy used to speed the protons up. And, still, though they are at a higher end of such speed-ups than ever before achieved, the percentages left between their highest and truly the speed of light are still significant distances to cover . . . and would require more or less infinite energy to get there—at least as we currently seem to understand things.
Is that close to right?
That's about it. Even though the distance between the speed achieved and "c" (the speed of light in a vacuum) is small as a matter of percentage of "c," the distance is infinite in terms of mass or energy (energy = mass times a factor).
Once relativistic speeds (say, 90% of the speed of light) are achieved, large energy inputs result in large mass increases, but small speed increases.
99.9999991% of the speed of light is not 99.9999991% of the way to "infinite mass." 99.9999991% of the speed of light in a vacuum results in a mass multiplier of about 7,500.
MUCH APPRECIATE YOUR CLARIFICATIONS.
I forget how old I was . . . probably BA university 1965-1969. The prof asked something about this and I noted the bit about the earth would have to begin to rotate around the infinite mass or some such.
The prof was quite surprised at my answer and with a smile on his face, said that was right.
So, that’s the background of that curiosity of mine.
Has long been a bit of a curiosity and puzzle to me with regard to the collider in Europe.
The issue though, is getting the "infinite mass" in the first place. There being no such thing as a free lunch, it basically takes infinite energy to get infinite mass; and the reverse is true as well. So, the only amount of "mass" that going to be available at CERN is that mass "created" by applying whatever energy they consume. And using E=mc^2, a whole lot of energy doesn't equal much mass at all.
However much energy these guys are using in say half an hour, to get a packet of 20 billion protons up to speed, is basically increasing the mass (at that location) to at most, a quarter of a microgram per half hour. And once the collision is done, the mass/energy storage is gone too.
Think of it as the reverse of an atom bomb, where mass is changed, quickly, to energy. Play that backwards to get an increase in mass (maybe a few grams), and you'll see that CERN has no chance of getting remotely close to the "point of infinite mass" situation.
Has anyone thought about asking the protons how they feel about gaining so much mass at that speed.
I think I understand that.
You have been excellent at clarifying my confusion.
Greatly appreciated.
I think the key part that I didn’t appreciate fully enough was that even though one is at 99.9% of the speed of light . . . getting to
99.99%
and then
to 99.999%
and then to 99.9999% and then to 99.99999% etc.
each step takes a huge energy increase. I wasn’t appreciating that fact sufficiently.
Are you saying that the protons in a certain D.C. wife’s butt would be prime candidates to ask?
OK, now THAT’S funny!
What we rightly see as a "huge" amount of energy doesn't represent much in the way of a mass increase. The atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki converted about 1 gram of mass into energy. Played in reverse, if one could, with perfect efficiency, harness the energy of a 21 thousand tons of TNT explosion, converting ALL of that energy to mass, one would get about one gram of rest mass.
My pleasure. High energy physics is counterintuitive (as is quantum mechanics), and some of the casual conversation by the physicists adds to the confusion; like the "as speed approaches the speed of light, the mass approaches infinity." While technically true, all sense of proportion is lost in the casual statement.
At the extreme end of thought experiment, the theory asserts that if one took half of the mass (I'm leaving some mass hanging around to provide place to watch the moving proton from) and all of the energy in the universe, and concentrated it into one single proton, that proton would still NOT obtain the speed of light in a vacuum. It would be very energetic, it would be very "massive," but it would not be traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.
Think of the magnetic field as a string holding the particles in a circular path. The heavier the particles, the stronger the pull on the string.
Most of the energy consumed by the LHC is used to maintain the beam path.
Fascinating.
I didn’t know that.
Thanks.
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