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Tests clear way for "Big Bang" experiment By Robert Evans Tests clear way for "Big Bang" experiment By Robert Evans Mon Aug 25, 12:16 PM ET
GENEVA (Reuters) - Tests have cleared the way for the start-up next month of an experiment to restage a mini-version underground of the "Big Bang" which created the universe 15 billion years ago, the project chief said on Monday.
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Lyn Evans of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said weekend trials in the vast underground LHC machine in which the particle-smashing experiment will take place over the coming months and years "went without a hitch."
"We look forward to a resounding success when we make our first attempt to send a beam all the way round the LHC," said Evans, who heads the multinational team of scientists that shaped the project and the machine, the Large Hadron Collider.
The final tests involved pumping a single bunch of energy particles from the project's accelerator into the 27-km (17-mile) beam pipe of the collider and steering them counter- clockwise around it for about 3 kms (2 miles).
Earlier in the month a clockwise trial in the LHC -- which runs deep under French and Swiss territory between the Jura mountains and Lake Geneva -- had been equally successful, CERN said.
The LHC team now plans to send a full particle beam all the way around the collider pipe in one direction on September 10 as a prelude to sending beams in both directions and smashing them together later in the year.
That collision, in which both particle clusters will be traveling at the speed of light, will be monitored on computers at CERN and laboratories around the world by scientists looking for, among other things, a particle that made life possible.
The elusive particle, which has been dubbed the "Higgs boson" after Scottish physicist Peter Higgs who first postulated nearly 50 years ago that it must exist, is thought to be the mysterious factor that holds matter together.
Recreating a "Big Bang," which most scientists believe is the only explanation of an expanding universe, ought to show how stars and planets came together out of the primeval chaos that followed, the CERN team believes.
Efforts to track it down in a predecessor to the LHC at CERN, and in another experiment in the United States, failed. But scientists are confident that the vast leap in technologies represented by the LHC will make the difference.
Higgs, a 79-year-old Edinburgh University professor who as an atheist angrily rejects the idea of calling the boson the "God particle" -- believes it will show up very quickly once the beams are colliding in the LHC.
"If it doesn't," he said during a visit to CERN earlier this year, "I shall be very, very puzzled."
(Editing by Jonathan Lynn and Mary Gabriel)
Posts: 3095 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
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So does mean that, if the expirament fails there was no Big Bang or if it succeeds that there is no God?
Posts: 3095 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
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Not a complex question....an intentionally and unnecessarily convolted one.
The implication from the statement of the question is that one of two things must be true, each of which denies the possibility of the other, i.e., that there is a god or there is the big bang.
Neither of these possibilities is required (absent outside and independent proof) and neither disallows any one of the others:
There is (or is not) a god.
There was (or wasn't) the big bang.
Neither the existence of a god nor the reality of the big bang discounts the other (or implies it).
Posts: 10354 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: That collision, in which both particle clusters will be traveling at the speed of light,
particles traveling at the speed of light? awecomeon, can't be right...
And why can't that be right? Are you familiar with the LHC? Have you done any research? That's exactly what it is designed to do glass. Unless that was sarcasm? hard to tell with you sometimes
-------------------- When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. Sinclair Lewis Posts: 2166 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: That collision, in which both particle clusters will be traveling at the speed of light,
particles traveling at the speed of light? awecomeon, can't be right...
Yep, unless the particles are light, any of them going at the speed of light sort of belies some guys equations, don't it?
Unless, of course, god said they could, I guess. They is alawys a ack-sep-shun to any rule....'ceptin the word of god itself, no doubt....
Posts: 10354 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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while everybody else is worrying about what happens when the particles collide at the speed of light? i'm wondering what happens to the particles when they actually get to the speed of light....
i predict that IF they ever do get to the speed of light? there will be no "collison" as we know it, because the particles will no longer be particles, they'll be waves..... seriously? i'm not sure the reporters (jouranlists) have quoted the scientists properly, i don't think they have...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27928 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: while everybody else is worrying about what happens when the particles collide at the speed of light? i'm wondering what happens to the particles when they actually get to the speed of light....
i predict that IF they ever do get to the speed of light? there will be no "collison" as we know it, because the particles will no longer be particles, they'll be waves..... seriously? i'm not sure the reporters (jouranlists) have quoted the scientists properly, i don't think they have...
You should go to discovery.com and check for their 1 hour special on the LHC. It was pretty informative. Watched it a couple months ago. It showed the construction along with the capabilities of the LHC. That's if your interested.
-------------------- When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. Sinclair Lewis Posts: 2166 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: i've been following it for years...
there's actually alot of controversy... the last big bang (if you believe in the big bang) was along time ago...
Actually what I was referring to was one of the main purposes of the LHC is to challenge the validity of the theoretical physics that have been accepted for years as concrete. Technology has finally advanced enough that those theories can now actually be tested. Sorry if I was unclear.
-------------------- When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. Sinclair Lewis Posts: 2166 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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If you have two cars on the street that impact head on each going 60 mph, the net collision speed is 120 mph. But at light speeds this isn't the case. Relativity dictates that no matter what speed an object is moving in any direction, the fastest any other object can be moving relative to it is the speed of light. So if you have two particle beams moving towards one another at the speed of light, their net collision velocity is still c itself and not 2c.
unless i missed something somewhere? we will only be able to approach the speed of light, not reach it...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27928 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: maybe this can explain what i was asking?
If you have two cars on the street that impact head on each going 60 mph, the net collision speed is 120 mph. But at light speeds this isn't the case. Relativity dictates that no matter what speed an object is moving in any direction, the fastest any other object can be moving relative to it is the speed of light. So if you have two particle beams moving towards one another at the speed of light, their net collision velocity is still c itself and not 2c.
unless i missed something somewhere? we will only be able to approach the speed of light, not reach it...
Saw your earlier post, the particles are to be traveling a hair under the speed of light. They are testing the theory of relativty. That is only one of many theories they will be testing. Now that we have the technology, some theories will be disproved and others confirmed. Exciting times if your a physics fan
Essentially they will be testing the established Laws of Physics
-------------------- When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. Sinclair Lewis Posts: 2166 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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matter is energy in a physical state created by thought -
So, glass- you may be onto something - when someting collides at speed of light - it is transformed back to waves -and then to original state (god)?
Posts: 771 | Registered: Jun 2004
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well TM, you're asking an awful lot in just a couple words. i suspect that what we think of as matter is waves, but they are "circular" (matter)as opposed to "linear" (light , heat). once you put enough energy (speed it up to light speed)into matter? it cannot maintain it's "circularity" and becomes "linear".
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27928 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Matter is simultaneously both "solid" and "wave"-like, all the time, at whatever speed.
It was from a study of the wave-like character of matter and the particle properties of light that Einstein won the Nobel Prize, not via his work on relatively, as too often is assumed to be the case. (Several others also became famous from proving the duality of both matter and light. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality
(Have to be careful here with terminology, such as solid and wave. Light comes in particles and matter obeys the wave equations.)
Posts: 10354 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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Matter is simultaneously both "solid" and "wave"-like, all the time, at whatever speed.
i agree absolutely, i suspect that the wave-like properties we observe in matter is due to the nature of the space they (we) occupy. We (in our current understanding) are missing a huge amount of the universe: Only about 4% of the total energy density in the universe (as inferred from gravitational effects) can be seen directly. About 22% is thought to be composed of dark matter. The remaining 74% is thought to consist of dark energy, an even stranger component, distributed diffusely in space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
i SUSPECT that this dark matter/energy is the "framework" of the universe itself (or we can just call it space). The photon is passed thru space in a way similar to electrons traveling thru a conductor. The space itself has some mass (but individual units would have the smallest definable mass) and actually determines the speed and direction of the photon.
as to "solids"? they are waves too, yet they have gravity that keeps the waves from leaving "orbit", just as the moon stays in orbit around the earth.
when you begin talking about massless particles? you have to redefine the meaning of matter, and we have yet to do it. the higgs boson is an attempt to do that. whenever "spin" is used to define an elementary particle? that indicates "waves". the Higgs boson is EXPECTED to have no spin... i don't expect them to find that. They should find something, but not a no-spin (IMO).
not being a mathemetician makes it hard to 'splain budge, but i've never liked the model that applies 1/2 spin. you need to find the lowest "spin state" and apply a value of 1 to that, and we haven't "seen" it yet...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27928 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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Remember, all that mumbo-jumbo is exactly that.....mumbo-jumbo.
But it isn't fanciful speculation, like religion or low class science fiction......guess-work or hope and awe trading on ignorance in the absence of anyone that can refute it, because, it is by its own nature, declared to be unquestionable fact, that must be believed, as that is part of it structure.
Each and every one of the current scientific "descriptions" of what is will be replaced, in time, by some new improved version of how to describe and quantify everything.
Yes, that does indeed say that they are only theories. But the "improvements" of those theories that replace the old are NOT refutations, contrary to the claims that simple minded religious fanatics like to believe, based on their untestable (by nothing more than saying it is to be) faith, which they declare, with no basis or argument what-so-ever, to be poof.
When Einstein's work proved that Newton's equation were not the absolute last word on physical phenomena, it did not invalidate even one tiny bit of Newtonian physics or make it false or wrong. Indeed, the physics of Einstein ceases to function if Newton's equations and laws are not true and fundamental. Einstein merely showed us that there is more truth and fact than even a Newton could imagine.
Posts: 10354 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005
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true, but there are things that are important.
for instance? whether the big bang happened or the beginning of the universe was more "harmonious" (my opinion) doesn't make much difference to us on a day to day basis right now,
however,
it might make huge differences if it leads to a way to utilize the incredible amounts of energy that are all around us all the time.
if the LHC creates stable "micro black holes" that do not give off the (theoreticl) Hawkings Radiation that they are expected to? it might make a big difference immediately too...
i don't expect micro black holes at all, but many do, and they expect them to "evaporate" until they lose cohesion and produce particles from energy...
Einstein got the Nobel Prize for the photoelectric effect in 1921, and that gave us "solar cells", but we still don't use them as much as we should...
-------------------- Of the People, by the People and For the People. Posts: 27928 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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