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Strong
27-10-2009, 01:22 PM
A thread for collider news.

Today:
BBC: Article - Particle beams injected into LHC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8326666.stm)


The LHC was closed down shortly after its switch-on last year, when a magnet problem called a "quench" caused a tonne of liquid helium to leak into its tunnel.

Since then, engineers have been working to repair the damage. Recently, all eight sectors of the LHC were cooled to their operating temperature of 1.9 kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space.

On 23 and 25 October, beams of protons and of lead ions were injected into the LHC ring, and successfully guided both clockwise and anti-clockwise through two of the eight sectors. Each sector is approximately 3.5km long.
Atom
27-10-2009, 01:35 PM
"Absolute zero is a temperature marked by a 0 entropy configuration. It is the coldest temperature theoretically possible and cannot be reached by artificial or natural means, because it is impossible to decouple a system fully from the rest of the universe." -456F seems cold, but what if we could go colder? It may allow us to reach closer to the speed of light I suspect. What I wonder is what great physical law might be uncovered if we hit the speed of light.
Strong
27-10-2009, 01:40 PM
Isn't absolute zero -273C, if so they are pretty close to it. Stuff starts acting in very weird ways at that temperature apparently.

Interesting question btw Atom.
Atom
27-10-2009, 01:45 PM
By; and cannot be reached by artificial or natural means, I suspect they mean that absolute zero cannot be reached, but that doesn't mean that we cannot inch closer, which is what we've basically been doing I think. I'm actually not sure if we can even know what absolute zero is, if we know that it can't be reached.
Strong
27-10-2009, 01:48 PM
How would you be able to detect when you have reached it?
Atom
27-10-2009, 01:52 PM
Exactly. lol
Atom
27-10-2009, 01:59 PM
Actually, if we can hit absolute zero, a sudden new law of physics may be revealed by the achievement of the speed of light by a particle as a result, which may indicate that we have indeed hit absolute zero. Just speculating of course.
Strong
27-10-2009, 02:12 PM
My memory is turning into a sieve. I remember seeing something about this and superconductivity once. But I can't bring it to mind.

It has something to do with the colder you get the more it changes how atoms and electrons move. Eventually at a certain temperature stuff changes into a new form of matter. I think it is a form of plasma, and consequently their properties change. I wish

I could remember stuff like I used to. :sqfrown:
Atom
27-10-2009, 02:16 PM
My memory is turning into a sieve. I remember seeing something about this and superconductivity once. But I can't bring it to mind.

It has something to do with the colder you get the more it changes how atoms and electrons move. Eventually at a certain temperature stuff changes into a new form of matter. I think it is a form of plasma, and consequently their properties change. I wish

I could remember stuff like I used to. :sqfrown:Well as I recall you've relayed this info before, but I can't remember it exactly myself, I suspect I'd make a rather poor student, thank god I'm not in school. LOL
Strong
27-10-2009, 02:22 PM
We would flunk the course, wouldn't we? :sqlaugh:
Atom
27-10-2009, 02:28 PM
I barely got out of HS, I was much more interested in sex, drugs and rock and roll, that is a fact. As a result, I somehow doubt I'd have made it through freshman college. lol
Strong
27-10-2009, 02:30 PM
I have similar thoughts from time to time. What would I have become if I had actually fully applied my mind to my degree. Alas such questions are pointless. We are what we have become.
Atom
27-10-2009, 02:36 PM
Unfortunately I am inclined to agree with your last statement. But my question is; have we really become what we are, or is what we are simply what we've happened to become? lol
Strong
27-10-2009, 03:41 PM
Chicken, egg, egg, chicken! Everything gets covered in shit eventually. What matters is, we are, and will be for a time yet. That is good enough for me. lol
Sami4u
29-10-2009, 03:43 AM
Hi,

So what came first the chicken, or the egg? :D

Sami
Cryren8972
29-10-2009, 05:13 AM
I vote chicken...
Strong
29-10-2009, 06:52 AM
They evolved together.
Zap
29-10-2009, 10:30 AM
I vote chicken...

Smart girl. :sqwink:
(Provided, of course, we're talking specifically about chickens and chicken eggs)
Strong
10-03-2010, 06:12 AM
Some crazed German woman tried to close down the collider by bringing a court case against the German government, claiming the collider would bring about the apocalypse.
Telegraph - Woman tries to shut down Large Hadron Collider over apocalypse fears (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7405637/Woman-tries-to-shut-down-Large-Hadron-Collider-over-apocalypse-fears.html)
Halo
17-05-2010, 05:36 AM
Some crazed German woman tried to close down the collider by bringing a court case against the German government, claiming the collider would bring about the apocalypse.
Telegraph - Woman tries to shut down Large Hadron Collider over apocalypse fears (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7405637/Woman-tries-to-shut-down-Large-Hadron-Collider-over-apocalypse-fears.html)
At least they were nice enough to give her a hearing. :3smile:


I like this:
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