On hadron colliders, dark matter and black holes

[torstan]

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.

[torstan]

Oh, another figure that might be of interest:

The LHC will be generating 40 PB/s of data (1PB=1000 terabytes). The challenge is in having simple triggers in your detector to make sure that only the important bits of data are written out to tape - and to make sure that the stuff you throw away doesn't have interesting physics in it.

[RobA]

A little late to the show, but:

http://xkcd.com/401/

and

http://xkcd.com/637/ "...Scribblenauts lets you summon the LHC..."

-Rob A>

[Karro]

So, Torstan, here you are working to unlock the secrets of the universe. And today the Nobel Prize in physics was announced for Charles Kao, Willard Boyle, and George Elwood Smith for work on Fiber Optics and CCDs (used in digital cameras). I concede what they did was important... yet my first reaction upon hearing this was kind of disbelief: do Fiber Optics and digital cameras really rise to the level we normally expect of a Nobel Prize-worthy research, does it really answer some fundamental question? So... as scientist, I'm curious about your thoughts...?

[torstan]

So the criteria for a Nobel in physics is that it goes to:

“the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics”.

So there's a split between inventions and discoveries. We normally hear about the discoveries getting Nobels, but the inventions are as important under the criteria of the prize. In this case CCDs underpin all of modern astrophysics and the optical fibre underpins our telecommunication. I think that counts as a world changing invention that has deep implications for physics, so yes I'd say that's worthy of a Nobel. Now the question is how long it takes before Tim Berners Lee gets it

Give it a couple of years and we'll see discovery Nobels for things found at CERN (we hope).

[Redrobes]

I think that the CCD having wiped out an entire technology and replaced it is substantial enough to be more than Nobel prize winning. In the same manner for long distance communication its done the same. Wires out, glass in. I know that I type this and it goes down copper as far as the end of my road before that Nobel prize winning invention kicks in and shoots this pretty much uninterrupted until its on the ISP holding this site. I think a whole class of communications guys could get one. Those guys which developed TCP/IP like Vint Cerf & co should be up there as would Lempel and Ziv. In any case I put the Nobel prize in the same category as the Turner prize, Oscars and all the other prizes. The whole thing is only alright if you don't take them too seriously.

[Karro]

Well, I guess I'd only really thought of the Nobel prizes in terms of Discoveries as opposed to Inventions. I suppose I sure am grateful that those guys did what they did, since it certainly does make the world a better place.

[torstan]

Yep, I had a look through the list and it's interesting to see that a lot of them are joint invention/discovery prizes for the case where someone invents an experimental tool and then discovers something with it. This one is rather rare in that it is solely an invention.

The Nobels will always be a little skewed - there's no maths or engineering Nobel for example. But yes, looking back through the history of the prize, most of the big names of physics are there at some point, so it's pretty representative.

[torstan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8299668.stm

Interesting. I can't wait to find out what good he thought he'd do at CERN, but finding intelligent educated and capable scientists involved with al-Qaeda is a little disturbing.

Edit: Looks like he's an engineer.

[waldronate]

Trying to steal antimatter to use against the Vatican, no doubt.