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| Science & Technology |
| Large Hadron Collider sets world energy record |
| 2009-12-01 |
| [Iran Press TV Latest] The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has reached a major milestone, accelerating beams of particles to the highest level of energy ever achieved. The LHC pushed the energy of its twin beams of protons to 1.18 trillion electron volts to become the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced on Monday. The previous record of 0.98 trillion electron volts was held by Fermi National Accelerator Lab's Tevatron at Fermilab on the outskirts of Chicago. The LHC, which occupies a 27-kilometer circular tunnel that straddles the French-Swiss border, was restarted earlier this month for the first time since it was shut down in September 2008. Last week, the machine circulated two proton beams at opposite directions for the first time. The eventual goal for the LHC is to accelerate protons to some seven trillion electron volts. The LHC is designed to smash together beams of sub-atomic particles at just under the speed of light. Scientists hope the collider can create conditions that followed the "Big Bang" and help explain the origins of the universe. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 Crashing protons together at high energies hardly constitutes a major risk. Other than standing to close, I mean. |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-12-01 12:50 |
| #4 More like a Chevy Vega. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2009-12-01 11:46 |
| #3 Is an Electron Volt anything like a Chevy Volt? |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2009-12-01 11:04 |
| #2 There is a non zero chance that we will be sucked into another universe that is so similar to our previous universe that we can't tell the difference (actually there is a non zero chance that this has already happened). |
| Posted by: lord garth 2009-12-01 09:21 |
| #1 Been nice to know you. Thanks for all the fish. [What makes you think the funding mentality that has driven the sexing up of global warming data isn't present in the determination of risk here considering they're dealing with 'theoreticals' of physics dealing with the very fundamentals of matter and energy.] |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-12-01 08:17 |