LHC Q&A

reply to post by TeraBlight


I hope you aren't getting over worked with these questions. There does seem to be some people thinking here, which is always good.

There was a question that someone asked in regards to the amount of money spent on this project and the justification for it. I would like to address that one.

This project has supplied millions of people with an income. It is one thing to just give money away, it is another to create high paying jobs for millions of people. A project that these millions of people can be proud of, to say, "I was a part of this", "I made this". The jobs were given to the citizens of the participating countries in the forms of everything from smelting copper to building computers, the manufacturing super conductive magnets, to building cabinets and chairs, making carpet, etc. the list goes on.

Anytime we can have an effort like this, working together on a project of global proportions, we have global benefit. And even if this collider produces no new data and no new information, it has provided those jobs to all of those people, so enjoy what comes of it, embrace it. Look forward to another great project that can put millions of people to work.

Years ago, leaders discovered the benefits of creating a common working goal and would put together a project, if for no other reason, to put the people to work, to earn a living, to create a greater sense of self and accomplishment. It doesn't really matter if it is building a pyramid, a dam, new highways, a rocket ship to Mars, a big building or repairing a statue of some lady standing in the bay, it is good, honest, clean and respectable work.

Excellent Post, Star and Flag.

Finally some information, facts, and science, in an ATS post - as opposed to the normal lunacy, conjecture and childish behavior...

Keep up your outstanding work.

Question: Do you know if the LHC will be used to study variations in the speed of light?
Theory: Speed of light is slower near the origin of the Big Bang, and faster as we move away from said origin (or center).

[edit on 11-9-2008 by NorthWolfe CND]

Nice thread explaining things etc.

Now just for kicks I'm going to paint CERN/LHC as a group of scientists possessed by the "occult"!

Raising the curtain on antimatter

This winter The Delphic Oracle,by Geneva's Miméscope company in collaboration with CERN, ran for an extended season in the pit that houses the Delphi experiment at CERN's LEP electron-positron collider. Using a matter-antimatter collider as the scene, the play focused on Paul Dirac's mathematical discovery of antimatter symmetry.

Writing the script was a challenge - presenting the ideas of antimatter as entertainment, not as a scientific seminar. Renilde Vanden Broeck of CERN's press office, following a diploma course in Science Communication at the University of London, chose to present the idea behind and the build-up to The Delphic Oraclefor her course dissertation.


In the following extract, Renilde describes some obstacles encountered on the way to presenting antimatter on stage.


Just two weeks before opening night, Anne Gaud McKee of the Miméscope company and I are walking to CERN's reception area. We are both very excited about the forthcoming play's freshly printed posters and leaflets. She is picking them up to have them distributed all over Geneva. I tell her about the first interviews she will have to do tonight and that the press is really picking up. She is very excited and suddenly exclaims: "You haven't heard the last yet: we changed the whole script!"

CERN to Start Up the Large Hadron Collider. Now Here's How It Plans to Stop It

Next, the 0.2-millimeter proton beam passes through 10 dilution magnets, which cause the protons to fan out until the beam has thickened to a lower-intensity diameter of 1.5 mm.

Now fattened to the width of a human hair, the beam continues down the tunnel to the beam-dump cavern. Inside waits a cylindrical block of a dense, absorptive graphite composite that is 8 meters long and 0.7 meters in diameter.

The 10-ton graphite cylinder is encased in 1000 metric tons of steel and concrete. Why not just make the whole thing out of lead or another heavy metal? It turns out that graphite is the only material whose low density and high melting point can resist the ravages of the proton beam. In experiments, researchers found that an 86-microsecond exposure of the beam would bore a hole 40 meters into a block of copper.

Even though the beam’s damage potential has now been reduced by its increased girth, the beam would still handily eat through the graphite composite cylinder. So instead of letting it burn a single 1.5-mm-wide hole into the cylinder, CERN engineers designed the system to “scan” the beam onto the face of the cylinder, much as the electron beam is scanned in a cathode-ray-tube television screen. To ensure that the intense beam never lingers too long in one place, it is scanned as a pattern—which vaguely resembles the letter e—onto the cylinder.

Varieties of Unreligious Experience: The E at Delphi

The E at Delphi

In the pronaos (vestibule) of the ancient Oracle of Delphi, so it is said, were three inscriptions on the walls. The first of these, and the most famous, read Gnothi seauton—'Know thyself'—while the second read Meden agan—'Nothing in excess'. The third was merely the letter E: a capital epsilon. Plutarch's essay on the meaning of the E, in which various thinkers propose different explanations, is our only literary source for the object. Not much is clear about the E; in fact, it is even suggested that there are three of them: (continued)

(resumed)
The quest for the meaning of the E acquires an epic significance in Plutarch's essay: 'Our kind Apollo, in the oracles which he gives his consultants, seems to solve the problems of life and to find a remedy, while problems of the intellect he actually suggests and propounds to the born love of wisdom in the soul, thus implanting an appetite which leads to truth.' The wonder occasioned by enigmas like the Delphic E is thus for Plutarch the impetus to philosophical wisdom.

And there is actually a chamber in the LEP Pit in CERN I think they have given the name "the Delphic Oracle".

LOL!
Let conspiracy theorists run amok with that!
Lastly I hope scientists won't change the script at the last minute and decide to bring the forces of darkness upon the World.

[edit on 11-9-2008 by spacebot]

[edit on 11-9-2008 by spacebot]

reply to post by TeraBlight


Excellent explanation of what LHC is and/or is not. Thanks!

reply to post by TeraBlight


Thankyou for that most descriptive reply...I'd assumed that the laws of fluid dynamics could equally apply to quantum dynamics...you've taught me something new today

Originally posted by NorthWolfe CND
Question: Do you know if the LHC will be used to study variations in the speed of light?

This post by Northwolfe prompted yet another question...as from this link from the Harvard University Gazette..Physicists slow speed of light

Could the energised protons at near-light-speed in the final circuit be 'parked-up' using the same principle used at the Harvard experiment to create a far greater particle-mass at either end of the collider chamber and then released at the same time to create a greater mass-force upon impact so enhancing the chance of detection of the Higgs-Boson?

If the LHC folks had managed to get one proton to go around the 17-mile tunnel once yesterday, CERN would have declared it a huge success. Well, by the end of the day they sent a beam of protons around the ring hundreds of times. I’d say they blew away expectations!

At ATLAS today, everyone was gushing about yesterday’s success, and about the data we had in our hands. The LHC people decided to put a collimator in front of ATLAS yesterday for several hours, resulting in numerous showers of particles lighting up our detector like a christmas tree. In the calorimeter data, we see energy in these events in just about every one of the independent 200,000 cells (each makes its own measurement of energy in a small region). Other detectors have similar luck. With this we can do a lot of work fine tuning and calibrating our detector, to be ready to take full advantage of proton-proton collisions, whenever they come. This by the way was supposed to be maybe a month or two, but with the way the LHC is working, we better be ready by about next week.

Also, here are some cool event displays from ATLAS.

(source)

The link contains two huge (30 and 60 megs) 3D flythroughs of the detector.

reply to post by TeraBlight


Thanks, do you mean the big bang?

Originally posted by TeraBlight

Originally posted by StargateSG7
A Brief Summary (Ha!) of Electromagnetic Quantum Gravity

I looked at the abstract and it mentions Cellular Automata theory - does the EMQG model rely on that?

At quantum scales Chaos Theory and the related Cellular Automata
DO come into play when describing local effects, which at small scales
look completely random and chaotic, but at larger scales become
self-organizing and ordered.

Super-Symmetry, String-Theory and the newer Membranes Theory
posit that the matter we see around us is really nothing more than tiny
explosions or ripples that sparkle in and out of existence at the
quantum scales but at larger scales feel like "Solid" matter.

Using an analogy, if you press your hand against a wall or sit on a chair,
at the molecular and larger scale of existence, YOU BELIEVE that the
wall is solid and that the chair is real.

At the Atomic scale, you are in fact PRESSING AGAINST OR ARE FLOATING
on an electromagnetic field that separates individual atoms from one
another. The ONLY thing that MAY intermingle are electron orbits
but the nuclear binding forces PREVENT actual collisions of nuclei
at our macro-scale of existence.

At quantum scales, what we can detect as the Protons, Neutrons and
Electrons of atoms are in fact tiny balls of bouncing/jittery quantum
matter called Quarks which are grouped together to give charge and
existence to the larger sub-atomic particles. On an even more
sub-quantum scale, quarks are believed to be nothing more than
ripples or explosions of extra-dimensional space and time that give
"Weight/Mass" to the individual Quarks that make up a Proton,
Neutron and Electron.

Using another analogy, if you stand far enough away, the bursts of light
coming from your computer monitor LOOK LIKE a solid image when in
reality, at the smaller scales, your monitor is really a collection of
gas or fluid-filled microdots that explode out beams of lights in a specified
pattern that looks solid to your eyes. Taking a magnifying glass
to your screen makes you realize your monitor is basically a chaotic
collection of tiny light emitting objects.

Quarks are the same thing, up REALLY CLOSE they are really nothing
more than seething chaotic balls of lightning that wink in an out
of our existence from "extra-dimensional" space but because that
action happens so fast and so close together, they feel "Real and Solid"
to us at the larger macroscopic scales.

The paper I brought to your attention illustrates that there is quantum-based
interference that causes larger particles to behave strangely and in
a non-linear/random fashion. These disturbances can be measured
on a consistent basis and it is the DEGREE OF DIFFERENCE from the
expected norm that allows any strange particle movements to act
as a light house to show up possible "Rocky Shores" during any
high energy collision events that would be present in a machine
such as the LHC at full power.

Although the authors of the report don't specifically mention
the LHC, it is inferred that disturbances of particle movement
within any number of common phenomena could be caused by
inherent "Chaotic" behaviour within Planck's length structures.

It is this unexplained chaotic behaviour that could be measured
and used as a stop-signal/red-line indicator when high-energy
LHC collisions create more and more chaotic particle movements
thus indicating a destructive wall of energy that MAY be let loose
if we approach or pass certain energy levels within the LHC.

Again, I re-iterate that we should MOVE SLOWER than what
is now desired by the LHC teams and that Energy Levels at the
LHC should be stepped up on a linear basis in much smaller steps
so that we have the chance to detect the incoming ripples of
space/time disturbances that may signify an oncoming tsunami of
chaotic quantum scale energy transformations if the LHC experiments
cause "Earthquakes" within time/space when it passes fundamental

limits of energy density during any single or series of high-energy
collisions. It can't hurt to at least TEST THE WATERS before diving
straight into Big Bang like energy levels at the LHC !!!!!

reply to post by citizen smith


Thanks for the great link...

Is there any time table of experiments that will be done at in the LHC? The LHC is funded by so many institutions, and countries, that I was wondering if the usage time, and various experiments, has been arranged yet?

Newsfeed:

September 11

20:30 Beam 2 into machine. Inject and dump 9 turns. Looks good.
22.30 Circulating beam !! in the machine for some 10mins.

Next steps
Same thing with Beam 1

Translation - counterclockwise beam kept stable indefinitely (millions of turns), the same needs to be achieved for the clockwise beam now. There are minor technical hiccups throughout the system, which is to be expected, all the emergency systems are working perfectly.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
All I have to go on is what the 'associated press' tell me it's all about. THEIR interpretation of it all (as far as I can gather) is an attempt to 'mimic/recreate' the conditions prior to the 'Big Bang' in order to understand how 'things/particles/matter' collided and formed and created building blocks and produced (ultimately) all that we now see after millions/billions of years of evolutions/chance/random integration.

That's not quite right, the analogy that is commonly being used is that it will allow us to study processes occuring soon after the Big Bang. No serious scientist would claim to be able to study anything "prior to the Big Bang", as by definition this constitutes a global event horizon. The commonly used analogy does have several flaws; the reasoning is quite simply that, in the most simplistic model, the Big Bang constitutes a moment of infinite energy density, which then gradually decreases as space expands. Thus, by increasing the energy of particle physics experiments, we recreate conditions closer and closer to the Big Bang.

Originally posted by eaganthorn
Anytime we can have an effort like this, working together on a project of global proportions, we have global benefit. And even if this collider produces no new data and no new information, it has provided those jobs to all of those people, so enjoy what comes of it, embrace it. Look forward to another great project that can put millions of people to work.

Very good point, that's a better answer than the one I gave earlier. Along the same lines, we shouldn't underestimate the impetus this project gave to a broad range of high-tech industries. The same could theoretically have been achieved directly, and would have cost less, but it just would never have happened. People don't, generally, build better superconducting magnets for their own sake; a greater purpose is required.

Originally posted by NorthWolfe CND
Question: Do you know if the LHC will be used to study variations in the speed of light?
Theory: Speed of light is slower near the origin of the Big Bang, and faster as we move away from said origin (or center).

Not directly, as far as I know. The only thing we can observe is the behaviour of the collision products once they enter the detector, whatever intricate effects take place inside the beam pipe itself must be inferred from those observations. There's no way to reconstruct kinematics data of sufficient quality to make this kind of investigation.
However, the speed of light is a consequence of the electromagnetic properties of spacetime, which we will be able to understand better by studying the behaviour of the fundamental forces at high energies, which is one of the major aims. So, indirectly, it should help to advance this field.

Originally posted by spacebot
And there is actually a chamber in the LEP Pit in CERN I think they have given the name "the Delphic Oracle".

The CERN community has a definite predilection for giving all manner of things names relating to ancient (mostly Greek) mythology, so I daresay any conspiracy theorist looking for that sort of material would have a field day. One of the detectors is called "Atlas", the software framework is called "Athena", among the software packages I contributed to were "Pythia", "Artemis" and "Giant".

[edit on 12-9-2008 by TeraBlight]

Originally posted by citizen smith
Could the energised protons at near-light-speed in the final circuit be 'parked-up' using the same principle used at the Harvard experiment

No, this doesn't work for "normal" particles like protons. In fact, high-energy particles do travel faster than light in pretty much any medium except the vacuum, see Cherenkov radiation. I'm pretty sure there is a very simple reason why it does work for photons, but I'm afraid my theory background is too shaky to tell you what it is - there are a range of characteristics that separate the two.

Originally posted by jiggyturbojim
Thanks, do you mean the big bang?

Care to be more specific?

Originally posted by StargateSG7
At quantum scales Chaos Theory and the related Cellular Automata
DO come into play when describing local effects, which at small scales
look completely random and chaotic, but at larger scales become
self-organizing and ordered.

I was asking because CA theory is considered fringe science.

At quantum scales, what we can detect as the Protons, Neutrons and
Electrons of atoms are in fact tiny balls of bouncing/jittery quantum
matter called Quarks which are grouped together to give charge and
existence to the larger sub-atomic particles. On an even more
sub-quantum scale, quarks are believed to be nothing more than
ripples or explosions of extra-dimensional space and time that give
"Weight/Mass" to the individual Quarks that make up a Proton,
Neutron and Electron.

You must have misunderstood. The minimal formulation of the Standard Model posits 24 fermions. The fermions break down into 12 particles and 12 antiparticles. The particles break down into 6 quarks, which make up e.g. protons and neutrons, and 6 leptons. The leptons break down into the electron and its two heavier cousins, and 3 neutrinos. Electrons do not consist of quarks or anything else, they are taken to be elementary.

Originally posted by NorthWolfe CND
Is there any time table of experiments that will be done at in the LHC? The LHC is funded by so many institutions, and countries, that I was wondering if the usage time, and various experiments, has been arranged yet?

No, the schedule has only been outlined very broadly so far. Anyway, for the most part, the accelerator will simply be running in standard mode (proton-proton collisions at 14 TeV) and collect data. Most of the experimental results will be gained by sifting through this data and statistically evaluating it. This is how all of the exotic particles have been "discovered" during the last 50 years.

I dont know if anyone else has said this, But why does it need to be so large?

Couldn't they make a smaller one.

reply to post by TeraBlight


ORIGINAL QUOTE:
At quantum scales, what we can detect as the Protons, Neutrons and
Electrons of atoms are in fact tiny balls of bouncing/jittery quantum
matter called Quarks which are grouped together to give charge and
existence to the larger sub-atomic particles. On an even more
sub-quantum scale, quarks are believed to be nothing more than
ripples or explosions of extra-dimensional space and time that give
"Weight/Mass" to the individual Quarks that make up a Proton,
Neutron and Electron.

ORIGINAL REPLY:
You must have misunderstood. The minimal formulation of the Standard Model posits 24 fermions. The fermions break down into 12 particles and 12 antiparticles. The particles break down into 6 quarks, which make up e.g. protons and neutrons, and 6 leptons. The leptons break down into the electron and its two heavier cousins, and 3 neutrinos. Electrons do not consist of quarks or anything else, they are taken to be elementary.


NEW REPLY:
I must admit I am NOT A PHYSICIST but I think I understand that
the Standard Model can be interpreted to allow that electrons,
(which are leptons with a 1/2 spin state) can be inferred to
behave like an electric dipole which ASSUMES that there is SOME
distance between poles and therefore there SHOULD be some
other sub-quantum particles/masses that make up an electron
to give an electric dipole it's charge separation, however brief
that separation may be. The fact an electron has a negative
charge to me indicates that it is possibly composed of two or more
basic virtual particles that wink in and out of our time/space
existence on a regular basis but differing enough that the
virtual particles that stay long enough in our space/time
is such that there is a net negative charge given to the group
of winking virtual particles which PROBABLY make up
the electron.

The Standard Model PREDICTS the BEHAVIOUR of the
"Virtual Particles" within our current universe
but NOT their actual composition or their original
origin or place within any extra-dimensional space.

Hopefully the by-products of the LHC collisions could shed light
as to whether any particle such as an electron or quark TRULY
has mass or is nothing more than an ever-smaller layered
composition of virtual particles or waves that bubble and jitter
into our existence from "Somewhere Else" which is interpreted
by us as being "Extra Dimensionial"

For all we know, what we call "Empty Space" is in fact
similar to fine grains of hot sand or soupy ocean that
pops, sparkles and fizzles or washes between the larger
"Rocks" of what we call regular matter and existence.

That soupy water or fizzling sand gives "Support" to the larger
matter which we call our everyday existence but, like any sand
or water, is ever-changing with movement and energy and thus
is hard to pin down for true examination and understanding
from our macroscopic level of existence.

I've read more than a few explanations of the Standard Model
but I still have difficulty understanding WHY they cannot truly
account for simple properties such as charge and mass
without getting into "Virtual Particles" and the abstract
mathematical concept of extra dimensions and why there
has to more than 5, 10 and sometimes up to 26 dimensions
in order to account for the properties and constants found
within our universe today.

In fact a big question I have which I still do not understand is:

WHAT IS AN EXTRA DIMENSION?

As a computer programmer, extra dimensions to me look like this:

Extra_Dimensions = Array[ 1..3, 1..10, 1..20, 1..30, 1..40, 1..26] of Items;

The above programming declaration makes perfect sense to me
on a mathematical basis as a multi-dimensional array of items
of any type which are separated out and/or grouped based upon
a numerically identifiable and indexable notion of positional
proximity within a discrete block of computer memory.

From a physicists perspective, how do you explain WHAT the extra
dimensions are that may be outside of Width, Height, Depth and Time....????

What Does It Mean - Extra Dimensions - And Why do We have to
Have up to 26 of them to have the speed of light what it is?
Secondary questions include what mass or energy is blocking
the speed of light from exceeding 299,792,458 metres per second
within the supposedly total vacuum of space.

For that matter, WHAT IS SPACE COMPRISED OF?

That is very interesting, I didn't know the standard theory considered that the electron may be made up of smaller particles.
I'm interested in the theories of Ralph Sansbury, he makes the same claim he refers to these particles as subtrons and claims in order to the electron to maintain stability they must be moving at speeds of 2.4 million light years a second!! this can explain entanglement apparently.
There's little available on his work but I find it fascinating.
I'm no physicist, but I believe the term particle is a bit of a misnomer seeing as they are simply a wave packet. Considering them to be only waves makes more sense in my simplistic view. I see the various particle zoo as just variations of charges in harmonic resonance with each other in a fractal geometric relationship and the fundamental forces as a product of these electrical interactions at the various levels of scale. If that is true then mass perhaps cannot be understood by smashing this harmonic relationship into bits. If that makes sense.

Thanks for your info into the standard theoryTerraBlight, I've learn t a few things. What do you make of this.

The “God Particle” or Higgs boson was invented by Peter Higgs to explain why other particles exhibit mass. He starts with assuming the existence of a particle that has only mass and no other characteristics, such as charge. So the Higgs particle is like no other in our experience, since all normal matter is composed of electric charges that respond to electromagnetic influences. (Dark matter falls into the same category.) However, we observe that the mass of a charged subatomic particle is altered by the application of electromagnetic forces. At its simplest (and Nature is economical in our experience) it indicates that mass is related to the storage of energy within a system of electric charges inside the particle. That’s what E = mc2 is telling us. So how can a massive particle be constructed without electric charge? It shows the problem inherent in leaving physics to mathematicians — there is a disconnect between mathematical concepts and reality.

The notion that subatomic particles exhibit mass as a result of their interaction with imaginary Higgs particles occupying all of empty space like some form of treacle should have caused a sceptical uproar, if it weren’t for the appalling apathy of the public toward such nonsense. The ‘annihilation’ and ‘creation’ of matter is invoked when particles at particular points arise from ‘fields’ spread over space and time. Higgs found that parameters in the equations for the field associated with his hypothetical particle can be chosen in such a way that the lowest energy state of that field (empty space) is not zero. With the field energy non-zero in empty space, all particles that can interact with the Higgs particle gain mass from the interaction.

This explanation for the phenomenon of mass should have been stillborn if common sense was used. To begin, the annihilation and creation of matter is forbidden by a principle of physics. It is tantamount to magic. Second, field theory is a purely imaginary construct, which may or may not have physical significance. And third, it is not explained how the Higgs particle can have intrinsic mass but no charge and yet interact with normal matter, which has charge but is said to have no intrinsic mass. Rather than explain the phenomenon of mass, the theory serves to complicate and confuse the issue. The most amazing feature of this $6 billion experiment is the confused and illogical thinking behind it.

www.holoscience.com...

I'm not trying to be argumentative by putting this here, I appreciate your info and you seem like a straight thinker and I'd am sincerely interested in your opinion.

[edit on 12-9-2008 by squiz]

I have a simple question.

What will the future of the LHC be when after doing their experiments will show up nothing new?

Anybody knows?

I'm curious about Reverse Hawking Radiation it's hard to find anything on it but from the bit's and pieces I've picked up it seems it can make small black holes grow more rapidly than large ones.

The only other thing I've heard is if Dark Energy exists than reverse hawking radiation is more likely than hawking radiation.

I'll not pretend I understand it but I see this as having huge implications if the LHC collisions go ahead.

If anyone has any links that explain it or anything I'd be interested in reading them.

[edit on 16-9-2008 by Teknikal]

I wish i understood more too,oh well we will find out more very soon.

Apparantly the glitches have been fixed and it due to be turned on and smashing particles as early as next week.

www.timesonline.co.uk...

the timetable has had to be delayed because of power failures that affected its cooling system.The problems were resolved finally yesterday and the team was planning to resume circulating beams of protons around the 17-mile (27km) ring last night.

reply to post by tracey ace


it's actually being put on hold for two more months....

Article

[edit on 22-9-2008 by baseball101]

[edit on 22-9-2008 by baseball101]

Do you believe thats the truth?
I dont.
I think they are going to keep it under wraps from now on especially after the hacking.
I also reckon that the hackers may have caused some damage but i doubt that they would admit it.
It would have possibly been turned on today or sometime this week.
It still may.Who knows?