Monday, December 22, 2008

Geekiest Christmas Card Ever!

Has to come from Fermilab, celebrating the most weekly collisions ever generated by the tevatron, the large particle accelerator.
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5 comments:

MinnesotaChick said...

Hee hee

December 22, 2008 at 9:39 PM
kkdither said...

Definitely wins the geek cake award.

December 23, 2008 at 12:47 AM
Beejay said...

A real nerdy geeky card!

December 23, 2008 at 11:47 AM
OrbsCorbs said...

They shoulda used graphs shaped like a Christmas tree.

December 23, 2008 at 4:09 PM
hale-bopp said...

Well, it looks like a bunch of half Christmas trees to me!

There are really three graphs on this chart. The green shows the total current being carried by the beam of protons and anti-protons. The blue and red show the collision rates at two of the detectors (since they use the same beam, the collision rates should be about the same, and the lines are almost right on top of each other so that's good).

When you put a bunch of protons and anti-protons in the accelerator, you have a lot of current and hence a lot of collisions. Over time you lose particles as they collide and the current and collision rates go down. Then they inject a new bunch of protons and anti-protons and everything goes back up again. I count 10 bunches injected in this graph over the course of a week.

At least they choose pretty Christmassy reds and greens for the dominant colors!

December 23, 2008 at 5:12 PM

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