20 November 2009

LHC back in action

Tonight scientists at CERN are rebooting the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in an attempt to recreate conditions fractions of a second after the Big Bang by crashing opposing proton beams, traveling at nearly the speed of light, into one another. Shortly after the LHC’s debut last September, a manufacturing glitch in wiring led to a liquid helium explosion that left the surrounding equipment damaged and ice-coated. The LHC faced another (albeit more humorous) setback earlier this month when a bird dropped a piece of baguette into the machine, causing a short circuit.

Now that repairs are completed, scientists hope the LHC will offer insight into several puzzling theories such as dark matter and the Higgs boson, a particle which gives other particles mass. For the latest updates, follow @CERN on Twitter. To learn more about the LHC, check out Brian Cox’s talks on CERN’s supercollider and what went wrong at the LHC.

Discuss this Blog Post

door hanger
Nov 21 2009
Hi everyone! I
door hanger
Nov 21 2009
Hi everyone! I
phil anselmo
Nov 24 2009
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peter fedric
Nov 24 2009
LHC everybody knows as it has got great publicity as
it was said that when machine will start for the first time
the earth will be destroyed and all that stuff. But nothing
happen looks like publicity stunt.[url=http://www.greenzeal.co.uk/ t=_blank]survival kits[/url]
jans markers
Nov 27 2009
I find this article quite disappointing and biased (cheap name-calling, unsupported statements etc). The seriousness of a danger is estimated by multiplying the probability of the event with the damages produced in case the event does happen. The probability alone is meaningless.
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2236872
- Anthony Liversidge
  Jan 19 2010
  The link has nothing to do with the topic. This is a pity, since the topic of the dangers inherent in the LHC advancing into unknown territory is an interesting one, since the concern is valid according to papers by Plaga and others which are unrefuted. The one established fact seems to be that no one actually knows what will happen, and that the scientists and administrators involved are irresponsible not to allow outside review. Anyone interested might go to the scienceguardian.com coverage (currently the second last post) which reflects our thorough research into this topic.
Duke Cullen
Dec 2 2009
I don’t know why I’m so fascinated w/ this Hadron Collider. Maybe it’s because of the baguette incident
Jim Cory
Dec 6 2009
Grandma simplifies operation of the LHC (http://tinyurl.com/ycxtsee)