[quote](CNN) -- Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider managed to make two proton beams collide at high energy Tuesday, marking a "new territory" in physics, according to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
The $10 billion research tool has been accelerating the beams since November in the LHC's 17-mile tunnel on the border of Switzerland and France.
The beams have routinely been circulating at 3.5 TeV, or teraelectron volts, the highest energy achieved at the LHC so far, according to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
The first two attempts Tuesday failed, said Steve Myers, CERN's director for accelerators. He said the beams were lost before they reached their full energy.
Experiments at the LHC may help answer fundamental questions such as why Albert Einstein's theory of relativity -- which describes the world on a large scale -- doesn't jibe with quantum mechanics, which deals with matter far too small to see.
The collider may help scientists discover new properties of nature. The as-yet theoretical Higgs boson, also called "the God particle" in popular parlance, could emerge within two or three years, Myers said in November.
Evidence of supersymmetry -- the idea that every particle has a "super partner" with similar properties in a quantum dimension (according to some physics theories, there are hidden dimensions in the universe) -- could crop up as early as 2010.
The collider has been dogged by problems. It made headlines late last year when a bird apparently dropped a "bit of baguette" into the accelerator, making the machine shut down.
The incident was similar in effect to a standard power cut, said spokeswoman Katie Yurkewicz. Had the machine been going, there would have been no damage, but beams would have been stopped until the machine could be cooled back down to operating temperatures, she said.
The collider achieved its first full-circle beam in September 2008 amid much celebration. But just nine days later, the operation was set back when one of the 25,000 joints that connect magnets in the LHC came loose and the resulting current melted or burned some important components of the machine, Myers said.
The faulty joint has a cross-section of a mere two-thirds of an inch by two-thirds of an inch.
Should Tuesday's experiment go as planned and scientists are able to establish 7 TeV collisions, the plan is to run them continuously for 18 to 24 months with a short technical stop at the end of 2010, CERN said.
"It will be the beginning of a long period of running the accelerator with beams at this energy," Sutton said. "It's the period in which experiments will really start to collect data in this new energy region, where the potential for discoveries may be made."
Sutton compared the experiments to Christopher Columbus sailing for the New World in 1492, when he knew what he was looking for but didn't know what he might find.
"It's going into a new energy region," she said. "It's a new territory in particle physics, so we're really just standing on the threshold of that, which is exciting for everybody here, of course."[/quote]
About fucking time.
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/science/03/30/large.hadron.collider/index.html?hpt=T1[/url]
I love this advance internet in this black hole
Can't wait to see how this will turn out in the future.
:science:
also, what the fuck, it suddenly stopped raining.
fffff automerge
Thank god it's the holidays for us. When they were going to do it the first time, our [b]whole[/b] school went apeshit about "oh shit oh shit we're gonna die" to the extent that it was really fucking annoying.
DON'T CROSS THE BEAMS!
[img]http://bornandbreded.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/crossed.jpg[/img]
I read it as hardon :saddowns:
Weren't they supposed to shut it down for a year? Did they change plans?
[QUOTE=Orkel;21053785]Weren't they supposed to shut it down for a year? Did they change plans?[/QUOTE]
starts end of next year
I swear, if somebody or some newspaper yells black holes I'll rage.
[QUOTE=ashxu;21053640]Thank god it's the holidays for us. When they were going to do it the first time, our [b]whole[/b] school went apeshit about "oh shit oh shit we're gonna die" to the extent that it was really fucking annoying.[/QUOTE]
My entire school was like this too.
I was getting so tired of explaining to people how we wouldn't all die I just gave up and didn't even bother when swine flu came along.
[QUOTE=jordguitar;21053919]starts end of next year[/QUOTE]
It seems to be working now so why is it still necessary to shut it down?
So how will this help in the future?
[QUOTE=NoseFinger;21053560]Can't wait to see how this will turn out in the future.[/QUOTE]
It turned out great. :pcgaming:
[url]http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/03/500x_cern-tweet.jpg[/url]
Followed by [quote]First time in the history!!!!!!!!!!!! World record!!!!!!!![/quote]
[url]http://twitter.com/cern[/url]
CONGRATULATION CERN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU ARE WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[QUOTE=Orkel;21053785]Weren't they supposed to shut it down for a year? Did they change plans?[/QUOTE]
We must have somehow traveled back and forth through time :\
[QUOTE=DuncanFrost;21053659]DON'T CROSS THE [b][u]STREAMS[/u][/b]!
[img]http://bornandbreded.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/crossed.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Fix'd :D
[QUOTE=Sastion;21054112]It seems to be working now so why is it still necessary to shut it down?[/QUOTE]
planned downtime
[QUOTE=Zambies!;21053662]I read it as hardon :saddowns:[/QUOTE]
The hardon collider isn't gay as long as the scientists say "no homo" first.
And how will this all come back to being useful to us?
[QUOTE=ProboardslolV2;21055431]And how will this all come back to being useful to us?[/QUOTE]
It's useful for scientists and curious people who want to understand the universe.
[QUOTE=ProboardslolV2;21055431]And how will this all come back to being useful to us?[/QUOTE]
Knowledge
Is this going to be useful for spaceships to use as energy?
I thought they shut this thing down for a year to fix it or something?
[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;21055834]I thought they shut this thing down for a year to fix it or something?[/QUOTE]
The LHC is controlled by a Toaster running Apache.
[QUOTE=Madman_Andre;21055834]I thought they shut this thing down for a year to fix it or something?[/QUOTE]
I think they can only run it at half of it's full power for a year and then they're going to take it offline for a year so they can get it ready to run it at it's full power (14TeV).
I wonder what would happen if someone deliberately left a microwavable pizza in the loop
If a piece of bread caused all sorts of problems, a pizza would probably make it worse.
I watched the stream, I didn't really understand what was going on but it sounded awesome and breakthrough-ey.
:saddowns:
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