Large Hadron Collider to go online soon!

Diagoras

Unrepentant Francophile
Diagoras
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Messages
588
Just to remind everybody, CERN's Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to go online soon! While some are concerned that the particle accelerator will bring about the end of the world, the reason I am losing sleep is because I just can't wait to see what exciting results come out of it. I haven't found an exact date that it's supposed to be up and running, but Wikipedia is saying May 2008. If anyone else has better/newer information on that, it would be greatly appreciated.
 
I hope all goes well, nothing unexpected or bad happens, and the reactor turns out safe thoughout it's likely many years of service...

I know this sounds almost like a prayer -- it's not, but one can hope right?


INRM
 
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WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Or figure out some really cool stuff! :D
 
The last I heard the beam would be turned on in June, with full energy/luminosity in the fall.
 
Get yer END-OF-THE-WORLD sweatshirts here! Don't be caught standing in the cold without one!! Special two-fer-one offer - a sweatshirt that says "The Rapture is nie!!" and on the reverse, "The collider got me", made so either side can be on front. Show your preference and/or ambivalence!
 
Complexity said:
Is there a site that describes the ramp-up plans and that will be tracking how things go?
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Here's the beam schedule. Good luck reading it.

As for websites, I suppose the lhc main site is the best bet.

beam_sched.jpg
 
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BenBurch said:
Diagoras...

Don't lose sleep over the results, either. You won't hear of them for YEARS.

-Ben (Who has been a part of several HEP experiments...)
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I'm not sure about that. The discovery of the W bosons was announced within days of it happening. Rubbia and van der Meer had Nobel prizes within 18 months.
 
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Tubbythin said:
I'm not sure about that. The discovery of the W bosons was announced within days of it happening. Rubbia and van der Meer had Nobel prizes within 18 months.
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And how much time did it take Carlo to crunch the numbers?

At least, I know we had to crunch and crunch and to get any results at all from our detectors. Particle detector data is horribly noisy. And the number of "events" you trigger on and take data for and the number that actually have anything of interest have a huge ratio. And you could trigger less, but then you live in fear of missing that one event that would make the experiment. So people have very lax triggers and spend ages in the processing. Data taking was my specialty, BTW.

-Ben
 
Sheesh, all this money spent, and for what? All because some dude named Higgs lost his Bosons? :D
 
Great! And, here's where the U.S. gets left behind again.

"why should I fund someone's intellectual curiosity"
--Ronald Reagan 1980

excerpt from Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World
 
BenBurch said:
I was at Fermilab when the SSC was planned. Its almost a crime that it was canceled and the tunnel filled in.
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I was at Michigan State University's Physics & Astronomy department, working on the "Dee-Zero" project for Fermilab. Closing down the SCSC made our efforts more important, but somehow also made them somewhat pointless.

The least they could have done was convert the tunnels to one big NASCAR track!
 
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