The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be the world's most powerful particle accelerator when it goes online this fall and, with a circumference of 27km, the largest science instrument every built.
Rather than go into gory detail here, I am simply going to post the LHC rap.
I will blog the gory detail when they fire the thing up.
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11 comments:
Haha cool video!
Have to admit.. I have to watch it again.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who had to watch more than once...
Am I anywhere close, hale? Here's what I got...The two accelerators are creating matter by colliding and concentrating lead protons...while Alice is looking at the antimatter from the collision, which scientists believe was either sucked up, reversed or compacted by the force/gravity of dark matter or black holes?
Did I really just say all that? I feel like Paris Hilton presenting her energy proposal.
;>
Man, even on a good night's sleep, it is pretty deep stuff.
Sheesh, white people.
OK, first I have to say that I read "Large Hardon Collider" and I thought maybe hale-bopp had gone triple-X on us.
I usually dislike rap, but I loved that vid. I downloaded it.
kk, I don't even try to figure it out. All I want to know is, when are we going to get transporter beams? And replicators? And phasers? And engineers with Scottish brogues who keep exclaiming, "Captain, she can't take much more of this!"
Close kk...they can collide either protons or lead nuclei (the Relativisitic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven collides gold nuclei.) Alice is one of the detectors (although I am more familiar with the ATLAS detector). Particles collide and we see what comes out which could give us clues to how gravity works, what is dark matter, and possibly make mini-black holes (which would instantly evaporate but we would see a neat explosion of particles).
If you want to see something like this in your own backyard, remember Fermilab is in Batavia, Illinois about 40 miles west of Chicago. Check the website to see what their current status of tours is at Fermilab's web site. Fermilab was (well, still is until the LHC turns on) the world's most powerful particle accelerator.
In grad school, I helped build a detector for the LEP, the old accelerator that occupied the tunnels before the LHC was built. As is usually the case in such projects, you build the detector and then graduate before it starts producing data!
The video is cool, but I think I would have understood it better if I smoked a huge blunt first. But then I would probably be giggle’in my ass off and still wouldn’t comprehend what was being said.
The world will come to and end when the LHC is turned on. The end is near!
Seriously though, cool video. There was a Discovery show on the construction of this a few months ago. All I have to say is, I don't want to be standing near this thing when the fire it up. I'd prefer not to know what microwaved food feels like.
A few Sci-Fi books I've read recently, had alien civilizations using detectors for advanced societies that started experimenting on this scale.
And what pick up lines do these people use on each other?
"If I show you my projector, will you show me your collector?"
"I'd really like to have your particles collide with me."
"How about we accelerate to the big bang?"
We can start another thread about this....ok, maybe not.
September 10th has just been set as the turn on date.
And I have just received word that People for the Ethical Treatment of Hadrons is now protesting the LHC*.
*For the totally humor impaired or those who will not click on a link, this is a joke.
I've Got Einstein on my Mind
by Jim Purdy
Listen to me one and all, Oh dear,
For bad news I bring, The End is Near.
In the UK, the Daily Mail tried to clue us in,
That those mad scientists are going to do us in.
Yes indeed, they have published a news article
Warning us of a runaway sub-atomic particle.
The Large Hadron Collider is to blame,
And our universe will soon end in flame.
Oh man, the fireworks will be spectacular,
It'll be so big, I won't need my binocular.
As the end nears, some may grieve and mourn,
But I'll enjoy the show, just eating my popcorn.
Someday I'll entertain grandkids with the story I'll tell,
Oh. Wait. I guess I won't have any grandkids, oh well.
In college, we laughed at those physics dorks,
Always talking about their tachyons and quarks.
Yes, soon the world will be gone, we'll be no more,
Thanks to guys named Fermi, Heisenberg and Bohr.
So, as I await the end of all mankind,
I've got Albert Einstein on my mind.
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