Check out this google street-view inside the Large Hadron Collider and around CERN

a reply to: ErosA433

Wow that was awesome. Thanks for enlightening the realm with that information. I enjoyed reading that. I went looking on line for reads bout it but all I got was "fanciful" doom porn. I was hoping someone would happen along.

Bumping the thread with questions if you will…

When they fire this thing how long does it take to build up the charge? Do they smash opposing beams together, or strike a target? Does that make an audible sound?

Is this an all at once event or do the images they build result from a prolonged collision of sub atomic particles?

If I am asking this right… is it like charging a capacitor and wham? Or spinning up a centrifuge?

originally posted by: lionsdomain
After the visiting the link I ask myself WHY are there are so many "Emergency Shutdown"-Buttons on the wall. What kind of emergency in CERN could require to shutdown the system immediately, since it is - u know - absolutly harmless and nothing to worry about

If nothing to be afraid, why emergency shutdown buttons ?




If there were no shutdown buttons, someone would question that too.

a reply to: intrptr

Im in dark matter and not high energy or accelerator physics, though my PhD was in neutrino oscillations using a beam line. The accelerator works by constantly circulating bunches, each bunch is basically a small cloud of protons (in the case of the HLC) that are confined to a small volume. Each of these bunches is passed through RF cavities that impart energy onto the bunch. I dont know how many bunches are in the accelerator at any one time, though for the one being built inJapan for the neutrino experiment used 5 or 6 bunches in the main accelerator that where cycled in unison.

Once the bunches obtain the desired energy, they magnetically focused to collide (in a collider they are accelerated in opposite directions, there are basically two beam pipes that are brought together in the experimental hall)

It is not really a one shot thing, the object runs and does this all the time, all synchronized and in tune.

The collisions themselves are simply when the clouds of particles pass through each other, they have a chance of two protons colliding, or coming close enough to interact. If they do, the interaction occurs and depending on a few different factors and a bit of randomness, you produce particles moving out perpendicular to the beam.

There are beam dump or target experiments, but thats not how the LHC works. The images are built up event by event, but the analysis is performed using billions of events.

Sound, I am not sure, I would expect a humming noise, probably similar to a motor running the cooling systems for the magnets. The machine itself im not sure would sound more than the mains humming noise of power supplies.

I know that pulsed magnets can ring... a single shot or multi shot pulsed magnet can make a ringing noise similar to the sound of hitting a hammer on steel.

a reply to: ErosA433

Excellent description of "smashing" particles. the beams pass by each other like opposing lanes of freeway traffic or a figure eight race course. Energetic particles are so small that even at beam density the "collisions" are occurring un specified. Not like shooting bullets, more like shooting air streams, just way more energetic results.

I wonder is there any visible light spectrum flashing associated with the individual strikes in the collider? I know when I get a chest X-ray, I don't see anything. I know that Fukushima is a huge experiment in uncontrolled chain reaction radiation of all sorts of fission, also invisible to the naked eye.

Ever see this? A weird light filmed in one spent fuel pool at Fukushima after the melt down…Maybe someone knows what is occurring there.

Thanks for gracing this place with your expertise, I so so enjoy your descriptives.

I probably have more questions about intersecting light, but I hesitate to bother you.

The light you see in a nuclear reactor pool is intense Cherenkov radiation produced by high energy gammas and betas, reacting with the water, and producing particles that travel faster than the speed of light, in water. (not greater than the speed of light, but the speed of light in that medium)

These photons are typically in the blue, or UV spectrum.

An Strontium 90 source will produce Cherenkov light, if potted in acrylic, the 546 MeV beta decay is energetic enough to produce cherenkov for example.