funny youtube stuff

[Tony Scharf]

the LHC is amazing - if not for the fact its the most complicated
machine in human history, but also because it will generate more data
than anything else ever.  It captures and stores about a Gigabyte a
second!.  One side of the project rarely focused on in the media are
the enormous challenges capturing, prioritizing, storing and
distributing that information poses.  It just amazes me.

The way the LHC works is by using giant magnets to take protons and
get them moving as fast as possible - close to the speed of light, and
then smash them into either other.  The energy released in the
collision tears the protons to pieces, and then the various particle
detectors got o work trying to take pictures of what they saw.

the heavier a particle is, the more energy is required to shake it
loose from the protons (a proton is a hadron, btw).  They needed to
build the LHC because the Higgs Boson (possibly the particle that
gives mater mass) needs those high energies to be produced (if it
exists).  the colider at Fermi Lab (about a half hour drive from my
house) may be able to get to the energy needed, but only if the mass
of the Higgs is at the lower end of its theoretical range.

Why do they want to find it?  basically its all about gravity.  We all
know gravity works and we have ways of calculating its effects but no
one has any clue, ultimately, how it functions.  By taking a look at
the Higgs, its believed that they may be able to find that out.
figuring out gravities mechanisms could be a radical thing for our
civilization - look at what understanding of Electromagnetic forces
have had.

As to blackholes, it could produce some...but so might Fermi lab have
been creating them for decades.  And in any case, anyone who has seen
the Northern Lights has seen energetic hadron collissions of far
greater magnitude than the LHC can generate.  If that hasnt created a
blackhole and swallowed the earth in all the time that they have been
happening, then I think we are safe when they light up the LHC...

Tony

On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 7:17 AM, Peter Korsten <peter at severity-one.com> wrote:
> Gert van Santen schreef:
>
>> That was cool. But I still don't understand how the LHC works. Oh
>> well, hopefully it won't produce black holes in which the earth
>> will disapear...
>
> Nah, perhaps Geneva would disappear, so not much of a loss anyway. ;)
>
> Basically, with the LHC they're trying to answer questions like "what is
> gravity?" or "what causes our theory not to add up?" They will find a
> bunch of small, elemental particles, adapt their theories accordingly,
> find that they still don't add up, and need a bigger, even more
> expensive collider, but at least they'll make another hip-hop song about it.
>
> So now you know where your tax money is going. :)
>
> - Peter
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