Most of the activities at CERN are currently directed towards building a new collider, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the experiments for it. The LHC represents a large-scale, worldwide scientific cooperation project. Physics experiments were expected to start May 2008, delayed due to an inner triplet magnet assembly failing a pressure test in March 2007[4][5].
The LHC tunnel is located 100 metres underground, in the region between the Geneva airport and the nearby Jura mountains. It uses the 27 km circumference circular tunnel previously occupied by LEP which was closed down in November 2000. CERN's existing PS/SPS accelerator complexes will be used to pre-accelerate protons which will then be injected into the LHC.
Six experiments (CMS, ATLAS, LHCb, TOTEM, LHC-forward and ALICE) are currently being built, and will be running on the collider; each of them will study particle collisions under a different point of view, and with different technologies. Construction for these experiments required an extraordinary engineering effort. Just as an example, to lower the pieces for the CMS experiment into the underground cavern which will host it, a special crane will have to be rented from Belgium, which will be able to lift the almost 2000 tons for each piece. The first of the approximately 5,000 magnets necessary for construction was lowered down a special shaft at 13:00 GMT on 7 March 2005.
This accelerator will generate vast quantities of computer data, which CERN will stream to laboratories around the world for distributed processing (making use of a specialised GRID infrastructure, the LHC Computing Grid). In April 2005, a trial successfully streamed 600 MB per second to seven different sites across the world. If all the data generated by the LHC is to be analysed, then scientists must achieve 1,800 MB per second before 2008.
As of July 2008 the majority of the LHC ring is now cooled to the 1.9K operating temperature, and injection of first beam is currently expected to occur on the 9th August 2008[citation needed]. This should be considered subject to revision, however.
Found Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN
2 comments:
I've Got Einstein on my Mind
by Jim Purdy
Listen to me one and all, Oh dear,
For bad news I bring, The End is Near.
In the UK, the Daily Mail tried to clue us in,
That those mad scientists are going to do us in.
Yes indeed, they have published a news article
Warning us of a runaway sub-atomic particle.
The Large Hadron Collider is to blame,
And our universe will soon end in flame.
Oh man, the fireworks will be spectacular,
It'll be so big, I won't need my binocular.
As the end nears, some may grieve and mourn,
But I'll enjoy the show, just eating my popcorn.
Someday I'll entertain grandkids with the story I'll tell,
Oh. Wait. I guess I won't have any grandkids, oh well.
In college, we laughed at those physics dorks,
Always talking about their tachyons and quarks.
Yes, soon the world will be gone, we'll be no more,
Thanks to guys named Fermi, Heisenberg and Bohr.
So, as I await the end of all mankind,
I've got Albert Einstein on my mind.
heh, they fired the first particle beam this morning. We're gonna have to wait a few weeks for the atom smashing to beign. I Can't wait to see what they discover, maybe a it WILL rip the space / time continuum. I think that what be pretty interesting as well.
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