Board logo

CERN's Machine
mistergrumpy - 9/9/08 at 04:14 PM

Anyone keeping an eye on this big particle collider built by the company CERN? I saw a programme on it last week and I think they're due to start the machine sometime this week without any practise runs, full whack first time.
I think it runs under the French/Swiss border underground and it looks massive.
I don't pretend to know owt about it or even fully understand everything that they're piping on about but it just looks like a fantastic piece of engineering for a wierd and wonderful use.
Mind you I bet they never had to cut compound mitres joints like on the front of my car! Trying to get my head around them just blows astrophysics out of the water!

martyn_16v - 9/9/08 at 05:32 PM

quote:
Originally posted by mistergrumpy
I think they're due to start the machine sometime this week without any practise runs, full whack first time.


Er, no. The first run is tomorrow but the first collision isn't due for a while yet, they're going to be testing and calibrating for a while. Tomorrows run will be just the first time a proton stream gets run around the entire circumference of the LHC, then they've got to run another one the other way around it, and then run both directions at the same time. And then they can start smashing things

For the paranoid among you, CERN have recycled some of the particle accelerators from previous experiments, one of them was built in the fifties

I'll bet you any amount of money we're still here on Thursday

mistergrumpy - 9/9/08 at 05:45 PM

quote:

Er, no. The first run is tomorrow but the first collision isn't due for a while yet


Sorry yes that's what I meant to say. The fact that they get this thing up and running at all though is pretty amazing. They had it cooling to the same temperature as space itself.
Well I think its cool anyhow

matt_claydon - 9/9/08 at 06:29 PM

Couple of degrees colder than space in fact. They say it's the coldest place in the universe unless an alien race have built a machine that goes even colder.

Macbeast - 9/9/08 at 06:39 PM

So, was it a mistake to max out my credit cards today ??

RK - 11/9/08 at 02:06 AM

Well, they're not due for another month, so you should be OK.

ken555 - 14/9/08 at 08:36 PM

You can watch the webcams here.

That way you will be first to know something goes wrong.

Webcams

GeorgeM - 14/9/08 at 09:20 PM

David Jenkins - 15/9/08 at 08:07 AM

quote:
Originally posted by ken555
That way you will be first to know something goes wrong.



Briefly...