Magnet part broken at CERN

[CalliArcale]

Though the physics for this is well over my head, my brother worked for a while at Fermilab and so this story caught my eye. Doubtless it will interest folks here with a background in particle physics.<br /><br />Particle collider magnet self-destructs<br /><br />Depending on how long redesign and repairs take, this could delay the Large Hadron Collider. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Whoops, looks like Yevaud already started a thread on this in Technology.<br /><br />Yev's thread on the subject<br /><br />So, to discuss the non-Tech aspects of this, I'll bring up a question for the physics geeks here. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> What exactly is the Large Hadron Collider supposed to do? What makes it better/different from existing supercolliders? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

More Power!<br /><br />Woof, woof!<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />(It's a guy thing)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[heyscottie]

More power is right.<br /><br />The Tevatron at Fermilab, at about 2 TeV, is currently the most powerful accelerator in the world. The LHC is slated to get to about 7 TeV, I believe. As a comparison, the Superconducting SuperCollider would have been capable of reaching about 20 TeV.<br /><br />What difference does more power make? It means we can make heavier particles. When more energy is collided, there is more there to convert to mass. The top quark, discovered at Fermilab, has a mass of about 170 GeV/c^2.<br /><br />LHC has a good chance of finding the Higgs Boson, if it exists, and may be able to extend phsyics beyond the Standard Model at high energies.

 

[docm]

LHC is 7 TeV <i>per beam</i>. The collision energy for protons is 7 + 7 or 14 TeV. It can also collide ions (lead etc.) at up to 1,150 TeV. <br /><br />The beam dump has to absorb ~725 mega-joules; the equivalent of ~347 lbs (157 kg) of TNT. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

Wow! That's a freakin' huge amount of power. Thanks for the explanation, folks. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> I rely on you guys to help me out with physics. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[heyscottie]

Thanks for the correction...I was wondering why CERN didn't seem to be as much as an advancement over the Tevatron as what I had been expecting.