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Nice to see something other than the markets and precious metals is getting smashed.:cool:
World's mightiest atom-smasher starts operations
Date: 10/09/2008 09h03
GENEVA (AFP) - Particle physicists fired up the world's biggest atom-smasher on Wednesday in a mission to answer some of the most perplexing questions about the nature of the Universe.
Built in a tunnel 100 metres (325 feet) below ground in a complex straddling the French-Swiss border, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light and then smash them together.
The collisions will briefly stoke temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the Sun, fleetingly replicating conditions which prevailed in split-seconds after the "Big Bang" that created the Universe 13.7 billion years ago.
In this seething primordial soup, novel particles may lurk.
Discovering them could resolve mysteries clouding our understanding of how matter is constituted and came into being, scientists say.
"It's about acquiring knowledge for humanity about the behaviour of fundamental matter," physicist Daniel Denegri told AFP.
"We expect to make discoveries that could be rather spectacular."
Shortly after 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT), the first protons were injected into the 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) ring-shaped tunnel at the headquarters of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
It has required nearly two decades, six billion Swiss francs (3.76 billion euros, 5.46 billion dollars) and 5,000 scientists, engineers and technicians from nearly three dozen countries to bring the LHC to fruition.
Wednesday's operation began a long and cautious commissioning process, testing equipment and procedures, before starting experiments a matter of weeks from now.
In the LHC control room, relieved scientists cheered and clapped when the first particles completed a maiden, clockwise lap around the ring.
The protons' progress had been slowed down to ensure that systems were working properly.
When all is ready, the LHC will whizz two parallel beams, one clockwise and the other anticlockwise, around the tunnel...
More...
Date: 10/09/2008 09h03
GENEVA (AFP) - Particle physicists fired up the world's biggest atom-smasher on Wednesday in a mission to answer some of the most perplexing questions about the nature of the Universe.
Built in a tunnel 100 metres (325 feet) below ground in a complex straddling the French-Swiss border, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is designed to accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light and then smash them together.
The collisions will briefly stoke temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the Sun, fleetingly replicating conditions which prevailed in split-seconds after the "Big Bang" that created the Universe 13.7 billion years ago.
In this seething primordial soup, novel particles may lurk.
Discovering them could resolve mysteries clouding our understanding of how matter is constituted and came into being, scientists say.
"It's about acquiring knowledge for humanity about the behaviour of fundamental matter," physicist Daniel Denegri told AFP.
"We expect to make discoveries that could be rather spectacular."
Shortly after 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT), the first protons were injected into the 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) ring-shaped tunnel at the headquarters of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
It has required nearly two decades, six billion Swiss francs (3.76 billion euros, 5.46 billion dollars) and 5,000 scientists, engineers and technicians from nearly three dozen countries to bring the LHC to fruition.
Wednesday's operation began a long and cautious commissioning process, testing equipment and procedures, before starting experiments a matter of weeks from now.
In the LHC control room, relieved scientists cheered and clapped when the first particles completed a maiden, clockwise lap around the ring.
The protons' progress had been slowed down to ensure that systems were working properly.
When all is ready, the LHC will whizz two parallel beams, one clockwise and the other anticlockwise, around the tunnel...
More...
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