Cheers as Large Hadron Collider smashes atoms

[KynloStephen66515]

At six minutes past noon, after 25 years of preparation and several expensive setbacks, mankind yesterday came closer to knowing the origins of the universe.

Scientists cheered as the £5billion Large Hadron Collider finally smashed beams of sub-atomic particles into each other at greater force than ever before.

And they say the results will yield a much better understanding of what happened at the Big Bang - the birth of our universe.

The historic moment, at 12.06BST, ends years of scepticism about the collider, built at the European Organ-ization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva.

It also marks the beginning of the search to reveal the mysteries of matter and anti-matter and the origin of stars and planets.

In a control room, scientists erupted with applause when the first collisions were confirmed and colleagues from around the world tuned in by remote links.

"That's it!" said Dr Oliver Buchmueller of Imperial College London. "We are going where nobody has been before." And CERN director general Rolf Heuer said: "It's a great day to be a particle physicist."

The collisions took place with an energy of seven billion electron volts (7TeV) at just under the speed of light in the 27km (16.8 mile) collider tunnel, 100m below the Swiss-French border.

The record beats the 2.36TeV that CERN recorded last year.

Fears the experiments could lead to the creation of mini black holes threatening the Earth have been dismissed as "silly" by scientists.

Cern plans to run the collider for up to two years before closing it down for repairs to allow it to reach its full potential. By then it is hoped to have enough data to reveal the composition of a quarter of the universe.

Britain has invested more than £500million in the LHC.

Source Website

[zridling]

And on the software side, it runs Linux. Woohoo! 

[bgd77]

I can't wait to see the results of the experiments. I hope they will solve a lot of the questions that the physicists have regarding fundamental particles.

We are living interesting times.

[wraith808]

We are living interesting times.

-bgd77 (April 01, 2010, 06:38 AM)

At least until 2012 when they create a black hole and destroy us all...  

[bgd77]

Yeah, sure...  I hope they will analyze all the data until then with their Linux machines and discover something groundbreaking so that the Earth destruction will not be in vain.

[bgd77]

I read the initial post again, in 2012 they will stop the LHC for repairs, so how will it generate a black hole if it is stopped? 

[wraith808]

Because it will happen right before they stop it? ::shrug::

[Eóin]

Anyway, even if they create a black hole it's unlikely to do anything other than evaporate instantly. So no end of the world destruction even if they create one, which they probably won't

[wraith808]

Oh quit ruining a perfectly good sarcastic joke... 

[Eóin]

Honestly I suspected as much. But given the hype and media publicity that point of view has gotten it no harm to always sit a rebut beside it.

[f0dder]

And on the software side, it runs Linux. Woohoo! 

-zridling (March 31, 2010, 11:32 PM)

This is why we're all going to die.

[wraith808]

And on the software side, it runs Linux. Woohoo! 

-zridling (March 31, 2010, 11:32 PM)

This is why we're all going to die.

-f0dder (April 01, 2010, 10:22 AM)

Eóin?  Where's the rebuttal?

[bgd77]

I think that the title of this post is incorrect. The Large Hadron Collider does not smash atoms, it smashes ... hadrons.

[KynloStephen66515]

I think that the title of this post is incorrect. The Large Hadron Collider does not smash atoms, it smashes ... hadrons.

-bgd77 (April 01, 2010, 11:30 AM)

or 'Hardons' as the telegraph so elegantly put it!

[bgd77]

or 'Hardons' as the telegraph so elegantly put it!

-Stephen66515 (April 01, 2010, 11:35 AM)

I can't stop laughing! If the LHC will destroy Earth, at least I had a good laugh because of it (and of some professional journalists).