Large Hadron ColliderKey Concepts
* The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complicated particle physics experiment ever seen, is nearing completion and is scheduled to start operating this year.
* The LHC will accelerate bunches of protons to the highest energies ever generated by a machine, colliding them head-on 30 million times a second, with each collision spewing out thousands of particles at nearly the speed of light.
* Physicists expect the LHC to bring about a new era of particle physics in which major conundrums about the composition of matter and energy in the universe will be resolved.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-discovery-machine-hadron-colliderThe LHC is a major step towards humans unlocking the paradox which is the science behind the existence of everything we know and hold dear. The LHC is a particle accelerator stationed at the The European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland. It's creation was the result of a worldwide consensus for such an innovative device. Over 2000 physicists were contacted in over 34 countries! The hopes of the project is to create the unobserved Higgs boson ("God Particle") which would cease the now missing links in the Standard Model of Physics which would answer numerous queries such as elementary particles come about the trait of mass.
The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four known fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, leaving out only gravity. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared to the other three forces. In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized novel particles that might be produced, and for which searches are planned, include strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_ColliderThe actual collider's circumference is 17 miles while 50 to 175 meters below. Located in at the border of Switzerland and France, this is truly a multinational venture. The collider will house two pipes which will each contain a beam. The beams are destined to travel in opposite directions in order to meet, collide. Over a thousand magnets will be used in order to keep these beams onto a circular path instead of irrationally crashing onto the interiors of the collider. In addition, there will be a series of detectors in order to observe heavy-ionic interaction as well as the properties of the debris of quark-gluon plasma resulting from said reaction
As for the tools and other objects needed, they shall be stored in surface building. The objects include ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.
ResearchWhen in operation, about seven thousand scientists from eighty countries will have access to the LHC, the largest national contingent of seven hundred being from the United States. Physicists hope to use the collider to test various grand unified theories and enhance their ability to answer the following questions:
* Is the popular Higgs mechanism for generating elementary particle masses in the Standard Model realised in nature? If so, how many Higgs bosons are there, and what are their masses?
* Will the more precise measurements of the masses of the quarks continue to be mutually consistent within the Standard Model?
* Do particles have supersymmetric ("SUSY") partners?
* Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter?[2] See also CP-violation.
* Are there extra dimensions indicated by theoretical gravitons, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory, and can we "see" them?
* What is the nature of dark matter and dark energy?
* Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_ColliderAlso, the experiment will be based on proton-proton collision.
Cost
The construction of LHC was approved in 1995 with a budget of 2.6 billion Swiss francs, with another 210 million francs (140 M€) towards the cost of the experiments. However, cost over-runs, estimated in a major review in 2001 at around 480 million francs (300 M€) for the accelerator, and 50 million francs (30 M€) for the experiments, along with a reduction in CERN's budget, pushed the completion date from 2005 to April 2007.[14] 180 million francs (120 M€) of the cost increase have been due to the superconducting magnets. There were also engineering difficulties encountered while building the underground cavern for the Compact Muon Solenoid. In part this was due to faulty parts lent to CERN by fellow laboratories Argonne National Laboratory (home to the world's largest particle accelerator until CERN finishes the Large Hadron Collider) or Fermilab. The total cost of the project is anticipated to be between $5 and $10 billion (US Dollars).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_ColliderNow Since I'm tired, gotta use the Quote to it's advantage
Two Concerns are in the minds of those associated with the project currently.
Micro black holes
Although the Standard Model of particle physics predicts that LHC energies are far too low to create black holes, some extensions of the Standard Model posit the existence of extra spatial dimensions, in which it would be possible to create micro black holes at the LHC at a rate on the order of one per second. According to the standard calculations these are harmless because they would quickly decay by Hawking radiation. The concern is that among other disputed factors, Hawking radiation (the existence of which is still debated) is not yet an experimentally-tested or naturally observed phenomenon. The opponents to the LHC consider that micro black holes produced in a terrestrial laboratory might not decay as rapidly as calculated, or might even not be prone to decay. According to CERN, physicists in general do not question the assumption that black holes are generally unstable and those few who have pointed out issues with Hawking's radiation were only attempting to achieve a more rigorous proof of it. CERN further argues that even if micro black holes were created and were stable, they would pose no threat to the Earth during its remaining 5 billion years of existence.However, Dr. Adam D. Helfer's thesis concludes "no compelling theoretical case for or against radiation by black holes", and Dr. Otto E. Rossler's thesis calculates that Earth accretion time could be as short as 50 months.
Strangelets
Strangelets are a hypothetical form of strange matter that contains roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks and are more stable than ordinary nuclei. If strangelets can actually exist, and if they were produced at LHC, they could conceivably initiate a runaway fusion process (reminiscent of the fictional ice-nine) in which all the nuclei in the planet were converted to strange matter, similar to a strange star.
That is pretty much it. Hope you enjoyed a Nice Read.
Sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Colliderhttp://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/03/god-particle/achenbach-texthttp://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-discovery-machine-hadron-collider
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