Holy crap this thing is big. Its 27 KM long and 100 meters underground. The full sized image might make a good desktop image.

Why did they build it? Here is a quote from Wiki

When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and 'missing links' in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.[4][3] The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force.

They also think they may be able to observe micro black holes in the wake of a collision in this thing. Star Trek tech, just a round the corner.

Oh, if you want to help find Micro black holes and other stuff I dont understand, they have put together a screen saver like SETI at Home called LHC@Home. You can download it from here:
http://athome.web.cern.ch/athome/default.php

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0802/atlas_cern.jpg

When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and 'missing links' in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.

How awesome is science!@#!@ Drop a few squillion dollars just to test a theory. It's freakin awesome that sort of stuff is still going on.

yeah particle physicists get to play with cool s***

Not as exciting as the large hardon collider I was expecting when I looked at this thread.

f***ing incredible

how pissed are they gonna be if they are wrong & there is no higgs bosun :P i kinda get the same feeling about the underground experiment they have been using to try & discover dark matter (weakly interactive massive particals) where they have these massive underground tanks filled with some sorta solutions that in theory may give off light if interfered with by dark matter... but so far hasn't. a hell of a lot of effort to go to if the theory is wrong... but i suspect these guys probably know a little more about it than me :P~

it can be used as a shelter from the aliens if it doesn't pan out

did anyone else read the title and read large hardon

according to post #3, yes
or were you asking for anyone else besides shad

you should never cross swords

yeah i read post three, i was wondering if anyone else did besides shad and me

ok I'll allow that

how pissed are they gonna be if they are wrong & there is no higgs bosun :P
hell of a lot of effort to go to if the theory is wrong...

Not sure if you're aware of the scientific method, but an incorrect hypothesis can be just as useful as a correct one. The idea is to get to a better understanding of the universe through trial and error of theory and experimentation.

The only difference is that being wrong doesn't provide the same glory as being right, but it is just as important.

how pissed are they gonna be if they are wrong & there is no higgs bosun :P

Yeh I think they just throw the whole project away if that happens

How pissed will they be when they figure out they can do this on a table top collider riding plasma wakes

Reckon. All they need is a few dilithium crystals and a flux capacitor.

Also shad, I had a large hardon collision with your mum's higgs boson.

yeh you guys are right, of course they won't be pissed , they'll be ever so happy!... just plain joyous with thier pure righteousness with teh science n wotnot. ;D

Also shad, I had a large hardon collision with your mum's higgs boson.

If it is 27km long that's quite impressive.

Demon

I read years ago (I think it was in 98, my final year at school) that a research facility in Denmark managed to develop about 2 grams of dark matter.

ET, where'd you get that pic? I'm searching the site but can't find the pics:(

Look at thing. How can they possibly be pissed either way? I can imagine the little school girl giggles they will be doing just as the push the big red GO button. The GO button better be red...


That or a big lever. One of those levers with the hand grip in an upside down U shape, and it has to have a cool powerup noise when it is pulled. O yer.

what if they create a micro blackhole that grows as it pulls more things into it. how do you stop the kind of thing?

THE WORLD IS GOING TO END

ara, the Bad Astronomer has you covered:

Also, black holes this tiny evaporate before they can do any damage. Evaporate, you say? I thought they only got bigger! Well, read this, or read this, if you dig equations and higher-level stuff. Or just Google "Hawking radiation".

The portal cometh!
Prepare ! Prepare !

It shall not come to pass on Mars as was foretold by the ID,
yet beneath our very feet shall they crawl
up, up unto the solar light they climb
Hungering & slavering to free our flesh enshrouded souls

Flee you fools!
Our Doom cometh..

i thought they already detecting some of that something something in those underground pools

was on that history channel series, the universe

I'm prepared.
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/2944/halfreallifeio4.jpg

i created some dark matter a couple of hours ago and flushed it away

You should have donated it to science.

fade2black, i think you might've read it wrong coz dark matter is still theoretical & i personally wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even exist. it is simply used to plug up holes in astronomical equations... like why the arms of galaxies spin at the same rate, rather than faster for objects closer to the gravity source. you can't 'develop' dark matter... what would you start with!?

freewheelin, afaik the deap project is still running... no wimps or neutrinos have been detected so far. btw: that universe show is sensationalist trash imo :D i really hate the way they propose these totally farsical possibilities & then after the commercial break go 'but instead this happened...(reality)'. :/

B.Hardball

From APOD:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080225.html

Click on their image and get an almost life size version :p

Demon, Neutrinos have been found elsewhere but, right!?!

LOL @ LYNX

Nice pic dude!
/looks in cupboard for chainsaw

Fade2Black I think that would have been anti-matter, one or two atoms (or maybe sub-atomic particles) at a time. I'd be surprised if they ever actually made grams of the stuff.

Dark matter is a different matter altogether, theoretical, cannot be detected by conventional means, etc. Anti matter is the same as regular matter except with an opposite charge (anti-electron, AKA "positron", has a positive charge rather than negative).

An anti-matter burger would in theory have all the properties of a regular one, including taste and smell, but the anti-matter it is comprised of would annihilate with your hand and tongue. And the explosion would destroy everything for ages around :)

An anti-matter burger would in theory have all the properties of a regular one, including taste and smell, but the anti-matter it is comprised of would annihilate with your hand and tongue. And the explosion would destroy everything for ages around :)

The sad thing is, I can see news.com.au using a explanation very similar to this one to explain it to the ignorant masses, finishing with how many grams of dark matter it takes to circle the moon 13 times.

i remember watching on tv a doco about the building of this.. the drunkard foreman kept popping champagne every day he installed something new

i heard there is going to be cake after they finish their experiment. im looking forward to the cake.

so i said, supercollider? i just met her

and then they built the supercollider

f***, time to dust off the plasma rifle methinks.

im looking forward to the cake.

.. the cake is a lie...

who pays for this s***?

pave did, he could have gone cheaper but it was the only one that fit

capturing the energy (e=mc²) thru the emissions of anti matter when it comes into contact with normal matter would cure the worlds power problems...

I.e. one kg of anti matter would give us 89,875,517,873,682 kJ which is roughly 21,500 kilotons of T.N.T

Yep I think you're right, it most likely was anti-matter. This was an article I read in 1998 or 1999 so....

i watched a cool new bbc/horizon doco last night called 'what on earth is wrong with gravity' ... it has a very good explaination of the uses of the hadron collider & some good additional info on the suspected properties of the higgs boson virtual partical. the pommie commentator was a bit of a twat but otherwise i recommend this doco for ppl interested in this sorta stuff.

cool story. i watched there will be blood last night it was pretty good imo

so i remember reading about the black holes thing and how its safe.. and then hearing about the protesets about the end of the world - who is right..

why cant the mini black holes turn into big ass black holes?

Don't be at all surprised if thing is the end of the world. I'm not saying it will be, nor am I saying they shouldn't be using it because of the chance... but there is that chance that this thing will create something that just creates an implosion big enough to very quickly disappear our here favorite little planet.

Mind you, if that happens noone will be surprised, noone will be anything at all. It's not like you're going to get a warning with that kind of thing happening :)

The book Angels and Demons by Dan Brown is a pretty cool read, specially if you're into particle accelerators. The book goes into a bit of detail about the workings of the Hadron Collider at CERN (France/Switzerland/Geneva)...Off the topic but FYI Tim Berners-Lee and a couple of other scientisty blokes, all from CERN invented the World Wide Interwebs in 1989.

oh please raven, talk about a f***in trawl

The only thing it does produce like that are tiny little black holes that basically are gone as quick as they appear, indeed a large part of the equipment is designed to detect the remnants of these.

Its not like its something they havent done before either, the same thing happens in their smaller colliders they currently have

so can i make a phone call with it?

http://www.retroremakes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/another-world.jpg

clearly, raven has no idea about sub-atomic physics ;)

Dr Karl explained it by saying that there's more potential energy in a vacuum 1 metre x 1 metre (that is, a completely empty space) than there is in all the power stations in the world combined.

After last nights dodgy Korean $2 dinner, I'm about to unleash a whole wave of potential energy. Fortunately a lightly heated stream of water will wash it all away.