Atom Smasher Smashes Energy Record

Atom Smasher Smashes Energy Record

Carl Franzen Contributor
AOL News
(March 19, 2010) -- From broken down to record breaking, the Large Hadron Collider -- the world's largest, most expensive particle accelerator -- just achieved yet another milestone on the quest to discover the secrets of the physical universe.

Today, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, proudly announced they had circulated the highest energy particle beams ever produced by humans around the LHC, and on their first attempt, no less.

"It was incredible. I really didn't expect it to go," said Mike Lamont, the head of LHC machine operations, in a video posted on the CERN Web site. "Astounding. I mean, I don't think anyone in their wildest dreams expected us to go to 3.5 TeV. I think to do that on the first try just shows us what a beautiful machine we've got here."

The measurement Lamont refers to, "TeV," stands for "tera-electron volts," a physics term that describes the extremely small amount of kinetic energy one particle gains when it is accelerated. In reaching the new level of 3.5 TeV early this morning, the LHC bested its own previous world record of 0.18 TeV, achieved in November. By contrast, 1 TeV is equal to the energy produced by a flying mosquito.

In two years, CERN scientists aim to accelerate beams of protons at twice as much energy around the LHC, a 17-mile-long underground ring located beneath the Swiss-French border near the city of Geneva.

"A full 7 TeV beam contains as much energy as a Royal Navy aircraft carrier steaming at 12 knots," says Lewis Page at The Register. "Once the beams are up, that energy has to go somewhere in the end: If a single magnet were to fail, for instance, a terrific blast of energy would leave the Collider's ring at that point with consequences much the same as if HMS Invincible had suddenly popped out of nowhere and rammed the tunnel."

Acceleration is only the first part of the much grander experimental process, however, as CERN scientists then point the beams toward one another inside the ring to create a collision, which in turn will produce double the amount of energy of each individual beam. The first collisions of the two 3.5 TeV beams (a 7 TeV total) are set to take place in the coming weeks, according to CERN via ZDNet.

When CERN scientists finally achieve their goal of colliding two 7 TeV beams together next year, they hope to observe in microcosm the same conditions that existed immediately following the "big bang," the widely held theory that the universe emerged from a single, unimaginably violent expansion of particles from one superdense, superhot state some 12 billion to 15 billion years ago.

"As the universe cooled and the temperature fell below a critical value, an invisible force field called the 'Higgs field' was formed together with the associated 'Higgs boson' [particle]," notes CERN's Web site. "The problem is that no one has ever observed the Higgs boson in an experiment to confirm the theory."

One of CERN's ultimate objectives for the LHC is to use it to definitively answer whether such a particle exists or not, which would result in either the confirmation or refutation of the theoretical building blocks of all modern physics. However, the implications of locating the so-called "God particle" have proven to be highly unsettling to some in both the public and scientific spheres.

A widely disseminated and erroneous fear is that the LHC could produce a black hole capable of destroying the Earth. Several individuals have even filed lawsuits against CERN in a bid to stop work on the Large Hadron Collider for this very reason.

In addition, since its construction began in 1995, the LHC has been beset by numerous unforeseen technical obstacles, glitches and bizarre moments of misfortune that have added at least $40 million to its total cost of $4.3 billion, reports the Telegraph.

The list of errors is as long as it is strange: In 2005, a technician was killed by a falling crane. In 2007, "there was a serious failure in a high-pressure test" of three focusing magnets inside the LHC. Finally booted up in October 2008, the LHC was quickly shut down again just a few weeks later after an underground tunnel ruptured, flooding the area with a ton of liquid helium and causing crucial magnets to overheat and fail. In 2009, more leaks were found, further delaying the project's timeline.

That same year, one CERN scientist made headlines after being arrested and charged with "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," in connection with al-Qaida. Finally, less than a month later, a random bird somehow managed to drop a "bit of baguette" into the machine, causing it to overheat and shut down.

The sheer number and variety of problems eventually led some in the scientific press to speculate that a force from the future or God himself was deliberately sabotaging the Large Hadron Collider to prevent it from unleashing a great catastrophe via its experiments.

However, since being turned back on in November, the LHC has performed "almost flawlessly," according to The Associated Press.

The latest energy achievement also kicks off what is to be the LHC's longest period of continual operation. CERN says it will remain on and accelerating for the next 18 to 24 months. By the end of 2010, however, it will be shut down for a short period of maintenance. And then again, in 2011, it will be turned off for a whole year to undergo more extensive repairs.


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