Definitely a rip off of Moonbase Alpha. I'll let them know their experiment is in violation of copyright....

So after talking to some experimental colleagues (true in a number ways) it seems that the start up is still on track for 5 weeks time. ATLAS - one of the two general purpose detectors, and the one these guys work on - is running data tests next week to get ready. All very exciting, and a lot of people holding their breath and hoping nothing goes pop. The start up will be just getting beam round the ring. Collisions will come some distance down the road. I'll see if I can keep up on developments and post them here.

I am reading a paper today about the sLHC - the planned upgrade of the LHC. This will take the LHC with it's collision energy of 14TeV and increase the luminosity by 10 fold. By luminosity, what I really mean is the rate that interactions happen. So that would give you 10 times the data taking rate. Even before you start dealing with the technological challenges of cramming more protons into your beam, you also have to worry about reading out all that data and processing it. So not only are we dealing with the experiment that we have, but also planning how to upgrade it so that we get the best possible results for the investment.

Other interesting things I came across recently.

The LHC will take more energy to run than Geneva.

Some great panoramas of the detectors:
ATLAS:
http://petermccready.com/portfolio/05091901.html

CMS:
http://petermccready.com/portfolio/07041601.html
and my favourite one of CMS (the Compact Muon Solenoid):
http://petermccready.com/portfolio/07041602.html

Lots of pics:
http://petermccready.com/

And a schematic of all the rings and subrings that are needed to get the beam into the LHC ring:
screen-capture.png

The little rings are old accelerators built over CERN's lifetime. You need larger rings for larger energies so the particles that are fired into the LHC will have taken a historical tour through CERN's past to get there. It also gives quite a nice impression of the complexity of the beast.