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On the border of France and Switzerland, the CERN organization is building giant machine that they intend to use to smash together tiny particles at great speeds. It is called the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC for short.
Currently under construction, it is planned to open in 2007, and physicists hope to use it to answer some fundamental questions about the nature of matter; for instance, what is mass? We know that mass exists, and that we can measure it, but what is it?
They’re also hoping to learn about dark matter, dark energy, and parallel dimensions. And perhaps most importantly, will a supermodel date a scientist if he has a large hadron collider?
A chap named Peter McCready has put together a very cool Quicktime VR panorama of the construction project, complete with sound. Damn spiffy.
Quicktime VR photo panorama with sound
Wikipedia article on the Large Hadron Collider
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This is great!! I want to know about Dark Matter/Energy very much since it makes up quite a bit of the Universe.
I know they smashed atoms in another contraptions that produced quarks. Or did they smash quarks to produce something else? I can’t remember anymore. I just remember they were amazed and they were very tiny.
Past the idea of actually having this and being able to explore all the these new areas of science, you know that someone is going to try and steal the Collider and conquer the world. And by someone I mean me.
You know, I find it somewhat worrisome that scientists always want to blow up little bits of the world in order to better understand it. But I suppose it does simplify matters. Still, I can’t help but think back to my childhood days, and the things kids would do with firecrackers when they had that power.
“Hey, let’s blow up a hadron now!”
“Cool!”
No, it’s not possible. A supermodel will never date a scientist, no matter how large his hadron collider is.
I read about this in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I’m now on a quest to find out as much as I can about dark matter.
I love dark matter. It confuses my physics teacher oh so much! And also, why do you need such a large machine to smash something so very small?
Keep ripping at the seams of exsistance it will become unraveled. Though it’d probably really cool to see what is underneath all this beautiful distraction…
The only problem in the creation of a black hole is that it would slow down time so dying would be pretty awful, especially if everything on the planet was dying together as it collapsed into itself.
These machines are creating huge bulges in the fabric of matter around them as the particles are heavy, so it’s stupid to do it here on earth and underground where the plates are already sliding about,
‘Hey lets get all our friends together and smash these protons and such together and see what happens’. Not that I’m encouraging any disasters but damn. Are they serious? Blackholes? (Yes I read the article and links). I think we should prep the grounds around this “lab” to implode on itself. Of course it probably wouldn’t help. If these guys are so smart, why don’t they build a rocket first, climb on with this LHC, and test it in another universe. Where in the hell did common sense go!
Well I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Oh yes, damn interesting article and good luck to the LHC and co.
Construction is apparently done and the first test to be next month.
Building a giant machine?
Cool article… Now who wants to hear a rap about it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM
P.S. I come from the future where they have already tested this. Success!
Should be my large hard-on collider
They need something so big so they can get the particles to the appropriate speed before making them collide into each other to manufacture the desired reaction.
Back when they conceived the idea for the nuclear bomb by splitting an atom… (which the energy released from that one atom splits the other atoms near it and creates a massive chain reaction, so on and so forth) … there was a theory that the chain reaction would never end and the bomb would destroy the entire world. They army decided to test it anyway. THAT seems more crazy to me than what these guys are doing. The black holes they create are microscopic in size, and are appropriately controlled to prevent damage.