LHC research programme gets underway - Polidicks

[quote] Geneva, 30 March 2010. Beams collided at 7 TeV in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research programme. Particle physicists around the world are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator. “It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN1 Director General Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends.” “With these record-shattering collision energies, the LHC experiments are propelled into a vast region to explore, and the hunt begins for dark matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson,” said ATLAS collaboration spokesperson, Fabiola Gianotti. “The fact that the experiments have published papers already on the basis of last year’s data bodes very well for this first physics run.” “We’ve all been impressed with the way the LHC has performed so far,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesperson of the CMS experiment, “and it’s particularly gratifying to see how well our particle detectors are working while our physics teams worldwide are already analysing data. We’ll address soon some of the major puzzles of modern physics like the origin of mass, the grand unification of forces and the presence of abundant dark matter in the universe. I expect very exciting times in front of us.” "This is the moment we have been waiting and preparing for", said ALICE spokesperson Jürgen Schukraft. "We're very much looking forward to the results from proton collisions, and later this year from lead-ion collisions, to give us new insights into the nature of the strong interaction and the evolution of matter in the early Universe." “LHCb is ready for physics,” said the experiment’s spokesperson Andrei Golutvin, “we have a great research programme ahead of us exploring the nature of matter-antimatter asymmetry more profoundly than has ever been done before.” CERN will run the LHC for 18-24 months with the objective of delivering enough data to the experiments to make significant advances across a wide range of physics channels. As soon as they have "re-discovered" the known Standard Model particles, a necessary precursor to looking for new physics, the LHC experiments will start the systematic search for the Higgs boson. With the amount of data expected, called one inverse femtobarn by physicists, the combined analysis of ATLAS and CMS will be able to explore a wide mass range, and there’s even a chance of discovery if the Higgs has a mass near 160 GeV. If it’s much lighter or very heavy, it will be harder to find in this first LHC run. For supersymmetry, ATLAS and CMS will each have enough data to double today’s sensitivity to certain new discoveries. Experiments today are sensitive to some supersymmetric particles with masses up to 400 GeV. An inverse femtobarn at the LHC pushes the discovery range up to 800 GeV. “The LHC has a real chance over the next two years of discovering supersymmetric particles,” explained Heuer, “and possibly giving insights into the composition of about a quarter of the Universe.” Even at the more exotic end of the LHC’s potential discovery spectrum, this LHC run will extend the current reach by a factor of two. LHC experiments will be sensitive to new massive particles indicating the presence of extra dimensions up to masses of 2 TeV, where today’s reach is around 1 TeV. “Over 2000 graduate students are eagerly awaiting data from the LHC experiments,” said Heuer. “They’re a privileged bunch, set to produce the first theses at the new high-energy frontier.” Following this run, the LHC will shutdown for routine maintenance, and to complete the repairs and consolidation work needed to reach the LHC’s design energy of 14 TeV following the incident of 19 September 2008. Traditionally, CERN has operated its accelerators on an annual cycle, running for seven to eight months with a four to five month shutdown each year. Being a cryogenic machine operating at very low temperature, the LHC takes about a month to bring up to room temperature and another month to cool down. A four-month shutdown as part of an annual cycle no longer makes sense for such a machine, so CERN has decided to move to a longer cycle with longer periods of operation accompanied by longer shutdown periods when needed. “Two years of continuous running is a tall order both for the LHC operators and the experiments, but it will be well worth the effort,” said Heuer. “By starting with a long run and concentrating preparations for 14 TeV collisions into a single shutdown, we’re increasing the overall running time over the next three years, making up for lost time and giving the experiments the chance to make their mark.” [/quote] Source: [url]http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2010/PR07.10E.html[/url] [img]http://public.web.cern.ch/public/features/100330b.png[/img] Images: [url]http://cdsweb.cern.ch/collection/LHC%20First%20Physics%20Photos[/url] Animations: [url]http://cdsweb.cern.ch/collection/LHC%20First%20Physics%20Videos[/url]

Very Delicate

*clears throat* [B]FUCK! FUCK!! THIS IS SO AWESOME!![/B] :derp:

I was gonna post this when I saw it on the CERN website, but I've been beaten. Is no one else excited about this? This is great news and the thread's only got three posts in it.

2010 :science:

They better not break that fucking thing again :argh:

Today is a great day for science.

[QUOTE=tarkata14;21061666]I was gonna post this when I saw it on the CERN website, but I've been beaten. Is no one else excited about this? This is great news and the thread's only got three posts in it.[/QUOTE] While this is pretty much awesome distilled very few people understand this. I bet it's alienating everyone. Can't say I blame them. Physics aren't easy, and when you start taking about antimatter symmetry and trillion electron volts as a unit most people remember they left the stove on or some other terrible excuse.

Amazing, but I thought they shut it down until December 2012? Edit: Oh, they will shut it down 2011 until 2012.

Holy shit yes. I love you CERN. :h:

[QUOTE=tarkata14;21061666]I was gonna post this when I saw it on the CERN website, but I've been beaten. Is no one else excited about this? This is great news and the thread's only got three posts in it.[/QUOTE] I know. I was trying to make up for it.

[QUOTE=PacificV2;21061747]While this is pretty much awesome distilled very few people understand this. I bet it's alienating everyone. Can't say I blame them. Physics aren't easy, and when you start taking about antimatter symmetry and trillion electron volts as a unit most people remember they left the stove on or some other terrible excuse.[/QUOTE] I don't know shit about physics but learning about the universe is fascinating to me.So this will experiment is about anti-matter?Isn't anti-matter a type of energy that exists in space?I don't get it :(

[QUOTE=Sub-Zero;21061944]I don't know shit about physics but learning about the universe is fascinating to me.So this will experiment is about anti-matter?Isn't anti-matter a type of energy that exists in space?I don't get it :([/QUOTE] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter[/url] Basically it is stuff made of anti-particles, versus matter which is made of particles. When antimatter comes in contact with matter it releases a shit load of energy.

[QUOTE=yawmwen;21061984][URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter[/URL] Basically it is stuff made of anti-particles, versus matter which is made of particles. When antimatter comes in contact with matter it releases a shit load of energy.[/QUOTE] Thank god someone explained me.Thanks a lot buddy

[QUOTE=Robber;21061781]Amazing, but I thought they shut it down until December 2012? Edit: Oh, they will shut it down 2011 until 2012.[/QUOTE] The fact is, if this LHC is purposely turned on for December 2012 then the Mayans were right we'd die in 2012. They predicted it. They never said anything about us reading it and wanting to probably do it ourselves! The fact is, that's what they predicted.

[QUOTE=Sub-Zero;21062008]Thank god someone explained me.Thanks a lot buddy[/QUOTE] That explanation is fucking lame though. I don't know shit about it, really, I just know what it basically is. There's a facepunch physicist around here somewhere, maybe they will come by to explain some of this shit better. [editline]08:53PM[/editline] [QUOTE=feltoni;21062012]The fact is, if this LHC is purposely turned on for December 2012 then the Mayans were right we'd die in 2012. They predicted it. They never said anything about us reading it and wanting to probably do it ourselves! The fact is, that's what they predicted.[/QUOTE] Oh shit that makes no sense at all, you must be right!

[QUOTE=Sub-Zero;21061944]I don't know shit about physics but learning about the universe is fascinating to me.So this will experiment is about anti-matter?Isn't anti-matter a type of energy that exists in space?I don't get it :([/QUOTE] Antimatter is almost the same as matter. Every particle has an antiparticle twin. Antimatter basically acts exactly the same as matter, except antiparticles usually have opposite charge to their matter counterpart (e.g, the positron, which is the electron's antiparticle, has a positive charge instead of a negative charge.) When matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate completely and release a lot of energy. The weird thing about antimatter is that there should be more of it, and there isn't. The universe seems to be made mostly of matter, and this is a huge unsolved problem in physics. There, now you know everything I know about antimatter. Oh yeah, it's currently also the most expensive substance in existence. :>

[QUOTE=feltoni;21062012]The fact is, if this LHC is purposely turned on for December 2012 then the Mayans were right we'd die in 2012. They predicted it. They never said anything about us reading it and wanting to probably do it ourselves! The fact is, that's what they predicted.[/QUOTE] no

[QUOTE=BaconDioxide;21062078]Antimatter is almost the same as matter. Every particle has an antiparticle twin. Antimatter basically acts exactly the same as matter, except antiparticles usually have opposite charge to their matter counterpart (e.g, the positron, which is the electron's antiparticle, has a positive charge instead of a negative charge.) When matter and antimatter collide, they annihilate completely and release a lot of energy. The weird thing about antimatter is that there should be more of it, and there isn't. The universe seems to be made mostly of matter, and this is a huge unsolved problem in physics. There, now you know everything I know about antimatter. Oh yeah, it's currently also the most expensive substance in existence. :>[/QUOTE] Thanks dude.

If antimatter existed, theoretical faster-than-light travel would be possible through a warp bubble. Basically, it separates space into a region around a ship. If the ship travels at 0.9x light speed and the bubble travels through actual space at 0.9x light, you have absolute travel at 1.8x light with no extreme consequences.

[QUOTE=Sub-Zero;21062561]Thanks dude.[/QUOTE] No probs, I bum off physics anyway :v:

[QUOTE=BaconDioxide;21062078]Oh yeah, it's currently also the most expensive substance in existence. :>[/QUOTE] this makes me wish i could turn my asshole TV into antimatter and sell it on eBay

[QUOTE=Disseminate;21062747]If antimatter existed, theoretical faster-than-light travel would be possible through a warp bubble. Basically, it separates space into a region around a ship. If the ship travels at 0.9x light speed and the bubble travels through actual space at 0.9x light, you have absolute travel at 1.8x light with no extreme consequences.[/QUOTE] Um.. antimatter does exist. We've made it in particle colliders. You're describing an Alcubierre Drive, which may be completely impossible to create, or use absurd quantities of energy.

[QUOTE=BaconDioxide;21062802]Um.. antimatter does exist. We've made it in particle colliders. You're describing an Alcubierre Drive, which may be completely impossible to create, or use absurd quantities of energy.[/QUOTE] I read somewhere that creating such a bubble for 10 seconds would need as much energy as if you turned all of Jupiter's matter into energy.

[QUOTE=Robber;21062935]I read somewhere that creating such a bubble for 10 seconds would need as much energy as if you turned all of Jupiter's matter into energy.[/QUOTE] I read that it would take more than the converted mass of the entire observable universe to create a bubble at all. It's really nothing but wild speculation at the moment.

[QUOTE=feltoni;21062012]The fact is, if this LHC is purposely turned on for December 2012 then the Mayans were right we'd die in 2012. They predicted it. They never said anything about us reading it and wanting to probably do it ourselves! The fact is, that's what they predicted.[/QUOTE] Even if this was [b]only a troll-post[/b] of you: The Mayan calendar doesn't end at 2012, just an epoche of it. Our calendar ends every year (oh noes! We will die!) [editline]09:52PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Disseminate;21062747]If antimatter existed, theoretical faster-than-light travel would be possible through a warp bubble. Basically, it separates space into a region around a ship. If the ship travels at 0.9x light speed and the bubble travels through actual space at 0.9x light, you have absolute travel at 1.8x light with no extreme consequences.[/QUOTE] Technobabbles I suggest. Seriously, you are mixing much stuff based upon pseudo-science and Star Trek. Alcubiere Drives (Warp) are possible with any kind of device which can bend space and is feed by energy - not necessarily by anti-matter/matter annihilation. Also, Anti-Matter exists.

[QUOTE=salty peanut;21062110]no[/QUOTE] Okay, it's like saying someone could predict me touching my nose. What if I decided to do that? Even if it was because I heard them say that and i've done that action, the point is that prediction is still correct. Now try replacing 'someone' with Mayans and 'nose' with 'the end of days' ;) [editline]11:18PM[/editline] [QUOTE=aVoN;21063219]Even if this was [b]only a troll-post[/b] of you: The Mayan calendar doesn't end at 2012, just an epoche of it. Our calendar ends every year (oh noes! We will die!) [/QUOTE] I don't believe in it either, but nobody really knows.

[QUOTE=feltoni;21063821] I don't believe in it either, but nobody really knows.[/QUOTE] I do. It's all bullshit.

I thought dark matter didn't exist?

[QUOTE=Rubs10;21064090]I thought dark matter didn't exist?[/QUOTE] It's a theoretical substance used to explain effects seen in large galaxies. We don't actually know much about what it [I]is[/I], but we know what it does.