Triumph in Geneva! LHC beams up and running again

There were emotional scenes last night at the headquarters of underground international atom-smasher science alliance CERN, as joyful boffins celebrated the successful restarting of the Large Hadron Collider. The colossal machine circulated its first beam around the entire 27-km supermagnet circuit at 22:01 Swiss time, and sent …

[luis sancho]

damocles sword

Yet Mr. Hawking’s theory has never been proved and it contradicts Einstein Relativity. So to prove Mr. Hawking right, 2 experiments were devised last year: a satellite called Fermi was launched to detect radiating black holes in the cosmos, but it failed to find any. A second test was done, manufacturing superfluid condensates, similar to those CERN will make with quarks; but formed with lighter, inoffensive ‘electro-weak’ Atoms. Those ‘atomic holes’ rotate 1 million times slower, absorbing sound ‘phonons’ instead of light ‘photons’ - reason why they are called dumb holes, instead of black holes. So, this June in an experiment at Haifa, Atomic Condensates rotating at supersonic speed became Dumb holes and absorbed sounds. Problem is they didn’t evaporate, proving that Quark Condensates, made at CERN, will absorb light & matter without evaporation. Because in Nature all what is possible happens (Totalitarian principle), Quark Holes should happen at LHC, making prohibitive for Public Policy the risks for Earth of a quark factory in this planet. CERN affirms LHC carries no risk, but critics contest neither Haifa or Fermi showed evaporation and the Company’s safety report doesn’t study Quark Condensates, which were little known when the factory was designed.

[Ian McNee]

The only place to hide is Barking

It's beginning! Just as predicted in the prescient work "Doom: the LHC Chronicles" by that great luminary Prof. I D Software! Run for your lives!

[Stoneshop]

Doesn't look like the real thing.

"at 22:01 Swiss time"

Swiss time has a far greater number of significant digits.

[Elsmorian]

It's Started..

Evidence showing the people at CERN aren't being responsible with this physics malarky is already popping up, and if they can't be trusted to use their newfound telekinetic abilities for anything better than posing for photos, what happens when they really start smashing atoms!?

http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2009/0911187/0911187_58/0911187_58-A4-at-144-dpi.jpg

[John Murgatroyd]

Quite: But about black holes...

Some very learned scientists have postulated that the largest black hole generated by the LHC is itself.

It is of such enormous dimensions that money disappears into the LHC-BC never to be seen again: In this universe.

[Christoph]

@luis sancho

The highest energy cosmic rays are vastly beyond what CERN can manage. They've been hitting Earth, and everywhere else, for billions of years. We're still here.

Lots of other places in the Universe go way beyond anything we can make. Only the most extreme of all become black holes.

But that doesn't even slow down the people yelling "Don't cross the beams!"

[frank ly]

@luis sancho re. "The sword of damocles"

"...they didn’t evaporate, proving that Quark Condensates, made at CERN, will absorb light & matter without evaporation..."

That doesn't prove it. It raises some suspicions that they might.

P.S. Learn how to construct paragraphs, they are useful and helpful.

[DJV]

December 3rd?

I thought the End of Time was going to be on December 25th!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meDLj5ANGNQ

[Nomen Publicus]

Not a real test yet.

So far, the EVIL LEVEL knob is only set to 1. Only when EVIL LEVEL is turned to 5 or 6 will there be the possibility of opening a portal to hell. To destroy the earth the EVIL LEVEL knob must be turned to 10 or, gasp!, 11...

[Filippo]

Re: damocles sword

You're missing the main reason for which LHC is certainly safe: this type of collisions, and even more powerful ones, happen routinely in Earth atmosphere when cosmic rays collide. If smashing atoms together at high speed was enough to create stable black holes, it would happen all the time. We wouldn't even have stars.

The rest of the safety report is just decoration. You could disprove all of it, and LHC would still be demonstrably safe. If black holes didn't evaporate, all that would mean is that the nanoscopic ones created by high-energy collisions disappear in some other way, but they can't be stable or we wouldn't be here. In fact, finding out something like that would be a major success.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Just No!

"producing sub-subatomic particulate prangs of such violence as to mangle the very fabric of time and space"

NO!

Fail by a dozen orders of magnitude. Planck scale is that way ---------------->

We think.

[Destroy All Monsters]

@luis sancho

"Fermi was launched to detect radiating black holes in the cosmos, but it failed to find any. "

FRACK NO!

Hawking Radiation cannot be detected from here.

"manufacturing superfluid condensates, similar to those CERN will make with quark"

HOLY FRACK NO! FAIL FAIL FAIL!

Where do people _get_ those things? Drawing all day long on a hookah filled with heavy Afghan Resin while listening to Half Life's Professor Kleiner's explanations about bouncing people off Xen while watching BBC Science Program just CANNOT BE sufficient.

[Jonathan Richards 1]

@Stoneshop : timing precision

Nah, they switched it on at the end of the last 'oo' of the tenth 'cuckoo'. Maybe the twenty-second if they've developed 24 hour clocks.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF

I had no idea it was restarting but last night I felt most peculiar, honestly, the unannounced event being just a few kms away.

I first became suspicious whilst having a late supper when the cutlery disappeared off the table and out the window heading in the general direction ofds CERN. This morning I was decidedly suspicious when I noticed that my bicycle was missing.

As for quark, well my missus bought some this morning from the local farm and they mentioned that bizarrely an awful lot of it had appeared overnight and they were happy to sell it off by the bucketful...but their metal buckets had disappeared so it had be plastic. Tastes a bit different as well, a bit of a burnt milk taste, hmm.

I think I will head off to the DIY store this weekend and see if I can buy as many as possible big brackets with very big screws to try and lock down the wife, kids and the goldfish and hopefully stop us all disappearing across the "event horizon" next Tuesday at 13.13 (French time that is, not Swiss, to be not quite as precise).

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a question

I wonder how boffins party?

I wonder if they had white coats with "CERN does it underground, at sub-zero and at nearly the speed of light" printed on them.

*strokes chin*

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus ça change..

What if the black hole occurs near a Swiss bank and the world economy gets sucked in, or has that already happened?

[Shadowslayer19]

The only one...

Although I am very happy for this, I'm the only one who actually knows what's going on, at least in my circle of friends. So I have to explain it to them every single time that something new happens. And of the few that know about it think that it is made to destroy the world.

I need nerdier friends....

[David 45]

Oo-er

Still feel faintly uneasy about this project. They be a-messing with things they don't totally understand, I reckons, despite all the rhetoric and comforting noises being made by folk who are supposed to be in the know..

[Mike 140]

... the real thing

re Stoneshop @ 10:27 GMT

' "at 22:01 Swiss time"

Swiss time has a far greater number of significant digits. '

Nope. The Swiss use the same 24-hour clock as the rest of us. Two significant digits comfortably handle values from 00: to 24: .

[Lord Elpuss]

@Destroy all Monsters

Where do people _get_ those things? Drawing all day long on a hookah filled with heavy Afghan Resin while listening to Half Life's Professor Kleiner's explanations about bouncing people off Xen while watching BBC Science Program just CANNOT BE sufficient.

ROFL

[Alan Firminger]

Pennyworth

Just like stuff in the LHC cosmic rays are particles that travel close to the speed of light. But cosmic ray head to head collisions are extremely rare. I question the reassurances.

How does the middle of the sun compare for violence ?

And whats all this about getting no radiation from a black hole when there are many beautiful pictures of great arcs of colour that are explained as X-rays from a black hole causing fluorescence. For example, but see here :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090422085754.htm

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shit.. @Elsmorian

They're using MacBooks FFS... Nothing good can come of this but at least the end will be stylish.

[Dodgy Geezer]

Don't cross the beams!

"The Collider has as yet done no colliding, where the two beams - racing in opposite directions at almost the speed of light - are crossed, producing sub-subatomic particulate prangs of such violence as to mangle the very fabric of time and space..."

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.

Dr. Peter Venkman: What?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?

Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.

Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?

Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

[Robert Hill]

@frank ly

By frank ly Posted Saturday 21st November 2009 14:27 GMT

"P.S. Learn how to construct paragraphs, they are useful and helpful."

You owe me a new monitor AND keyboard...

Spot on.

[Destroy All Monsters]

I want pictures of Alyx Vance ... no, NOT Ashlee Vance!

"Just like stuff in the LHC cosmic rays are particles that travel close to the speed of light. But cosmic ray head to head collisions are extremely rare. I question the reassurances."

You might then want to peruse this: http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3381 No, I don't understand the math either.

Note that cosmic rays may have far more energy than particles found in the LHC beam pipe and that "black holes in LHC" (N.B: non-stable ones; to all intent and purposes, it's just short-lived particles at that point) comes from people looking for extra dimensions to stuff stringy branes into, which sounds just slightly more plausible than purple cotton elephants dancing on your front porch when your are not looking.

But it's fun speculating: http://www-atlas.lbl.gov/physics/Sven_Black_Holes_with_ATLAS.ppt

"And whats all this about getting no radiation from a black hole when there are many beautiful pictures of great arcs of colour that are explained as X-rays from a black hole causing fluorescence"

That's not Hawking Radiation. That is radiation and accelerated stuff coming from the black hole's accretion disk, i.e. matter being seriously compressed until it squeaks. Only black holes of very small mass (primordial Black Holes evaporating to nothing in front of the camera right about now) yield a detectable gamma-ray burst of known signature. None seen so far.

But it's PUB CONTINUATION TIME now!

[DrRosen]

Collisions in Space Theory is FLAWED

The "Cosmic Rays occurring in Space" theory is flawed. Particles created from cosmic rays that strike with the Earth travel at nearly the speed of light. If neutral micro black holes are created from cosmic ray impacts with Earth they would pass through Earth and into space adding to the dark matter (non-light emitting matter) in the universe. The LHC collides particles head on and some particles produced by the LHC will be slowed down enough to be captured by Earth.

CERN just simply isn't taking this into account. Instead, they're putting all of humanity at risk.Many reputable scientists agree that the risk of catastrophe is at least 50%. The day collisions begin, I recommend keeping your children home from school and reminding them how much you love them. This isn't looking good.

-Dr Rosen

[DrRosen]

Alan is right

Alan is absolutely right, head-to-head direct particle collisions are extremely rare in space and we really don't know what happens for sure. Yet we're attempting to do it on our home planet. I say again, there is a huge risk that something can go horribly wrong.

Dr. Rosen

[Schultz]

messing around

"messing with things they don't totally understand"

Sounds like life to me. Carry on.

[Charles 9]

@David 45

Atomics (particularly atomic fission) weren't as well understood when the Manhattan Project got under way, either.

[Remy Redert]

@Dr Rosen

You're right, head-on particle collisions in deep space ARE pretty rare, compared to the length of time humanity has lived.

Of course head-on particle collisions in deep space have only been going on for what, ~15 billion years? At much higher energy levels. So what are the chances of anything having gone wrong anywhere remotely near any place our solar system has ever gotten close?

Pretty damned close to 100%.

[Captain Thyratron]

Some fairly simple energy considerations.

It doesn't matter if head-to-head collisions in space are extremely rare, because the collisions between some of the more energetic cosmic rays we've already seen and fairly mundane atmospheric nitrogen nuclei are still many orders of magnitude more powerful than what the LHC can manage by whacking two multi-TeV protons together.

The only reason anyone even bothers building supercolliders is so that energetic collisions can happen on demand in large numbers in controlled environments which happen to have elaborate sensors immediately nearby. Cosmic rays have been identified (type "Oh My God particle" into Google*) with kinetic energy comparable to that of a professionally pitched baseball; one little subatomic particle with a kinetic energy of tens of joules, or about eight or nine orders of magnitude beyond what the LHC can impart to a proton. None of these has destroyed the earth, despite standing what should, by all rights, be a far better chance than any of the protons the LHC will accelerate.

As for "right here on earth": The protons are travelling at a hair less than the speed of light, and doing so in such a direction that points through some relatively shallow part of the Earth's crust and into space, whereas a cosmic ray striking Earth with twenty joules of kinetic energy tends to aim through rather more of the planet and, despite the energy difference, is not going appreciably faster. Somehow, nothing more interesting has resulted from this than the occasional Cerenkov radiation event in the upper atmosphere.

Active galactic nuclei are producing particles more energetic than those of any accelerator mankind is likely to produce within the lifespan of the solar system, since the production of black holes of several billion solar masses like one might need to produce such particles will likely elude our manufacturing capabilities for the forseeable future. Yet, somehow, things which stand in the way of their jets are not turning into clouds of strangelets or black holes or whatever other nonsense. All that happens to them is that they get hit with a lot of intense radiation from the jet, on account of which I recommend against the wishes of any readers overly sensitive to gamma rays who plan to vacation to M87**.

*If you're too lazy to do that, then look here instead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-energy_cosmic_ray

**Lovely jet in this one:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/M87_jet.jpg

[Anonymous Coward]

R.I.P Earth 4.54 Billion BC to 2012 AD

It will take several years for them to hit the jackpot and create a new partical that should not exist in this Universe.

Most likey it will just wipe out a large section of Europe, this will lead to the end of out way of life, But I am confident that a few Humans and Cockroches will survive the event!

I off to start work on my Ark

Good luck

[windywoo]

Scientists taking crazy risks

This could end up opening a portal to a new dimension, allowing beings through that mortals were not meant to meet. Yog Soggoth, Cthulu, formless Tsathoggua and the worse than formless star spawn associated with that semientity.

[Anonymous Coward]

partying boffins

> I wonder how boffins party?

Unsuccessfully, but they invented the infinite improbability drive this morning.

Mine's the one with "every couple has it's moment in a field" on the back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Extinction

Unfortunately it's another way of reducing earth's population but a darn sight more expensive than releasing a few vials of genetically engineered flu virus.

Humans are getting far too smart for their own good, our arrogance is unlimited. Probably why an alien overlord or two have come visiting in recent millennia and instructed us to follow the instructions in his Bible book rather than get too carried away with our own ambitions and stupd science experiments.

Let hope an alien or two sticks another spanner in the works and stops these mad, self-serving scientists from pressing the self-destruct button.

[Flakey]

Just thinking.......

Wouldnt bumper to bumper particle collisions be safer than head-on particle collisions?

[Destroy All Monsters]

"Weir activated the drive. He's sending us to the Other Place."

"This could end up opening a portal to a new dimension, allowing beings through that mortals were not meant to meet. Yog Soggoth, Cthulu, formless Tsathoggua and the worse than formless star spawn associated with that semientity."

Sorry, these entities are already in Parliaments, Senates, ministerial pigpens and Prime Minister Control Seats. It's too late.

[Alan Firminger]

Where ?

For several years we have known when the universe started; possibly under a mountain on the Swiss French border.

It's cyclic.

[Trev 2]

Re collisions in space probability

I don't pretend to know the physics, but regarding this question about direct collisions in space happening and us not getting big bangs.

I'd assume that a few random direct hits in an area the size of the earth every second won't cause anything more than a very tiny explosion / mini blackhole or similar....nothing that we'd notice since if we did life wouldn't have gotten going. However if you send a concentrated beam of billions of particles towards each other then won't this likely increase the effect drastically and thus increase the chances of something more noticeable happening?

For the record - not against this LHC thing, just trying to put non-physics teacher logic to it.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Re: Re collisions in space probability

"I don't pretend to know the physics, but regarding this question about direct collisions in space happening and us not getting big bangs."

Yes, but consider: we know that White Dwarfs and Neutron Stars exist. These balls of compressed matter absorb cosmic rays; if anything untoward would happen with reasonable probability, these stellar objects would quickly transform into Strange Stars or Black Holes, the more so as a microscopic Black Hole would have a hard time _not_ finding material in its immediate vicinity to hoover up; it could not traverse the star like a bird traverses a cloud. This is not being observed.

[ThomasF]

Cern and John Titor Time Traveler

Well John Titor did say time travel or in his case Parallel Worlds Time Travel was discovered at Cern as they tried to to turn Life The Universe and Everything into a sort of Tesco grey Goo.

http://www.johntitor.com/

Though he never mentioned anything about Dolphins or a supposed Thank you note.

But at least we have proof that something good did come out off all those $Zillions poured into the Swiss Tony Doughnut. Before we destroyed ourselves that is.

[Mr Ian]

Black hole...

'nuff said

[Roger Moore]

@DrRosen: Space collisions NOT Flawed

"If neutral micro black holes are created from cosmic ray impacts with Earth they would pass through Earth and into space adding to the dark matter (non-light emitting matter) in the universe."

Sorry but you are forgetting that the Earth is not the only object in the galaxy. Micro black holes would not pass so easily through a star, particularly a neutron star, and yet nobody has ever seen stars disappear and yet these are being hit by the same cosmic rays that hit the Earth.

"CERN just simply isn't taking this into account."

Yes we are - the argument regarding neutron stars was used in a recent LHC safety report conducted by non-CERN particle physicists. There is absolutely no scientific reason for any safety concern from Black Holes and if you doctorate were in physics you would know that.

[ShaggyDoggy]

Tardy

"The colossal machine circulated its first beam around the entire 27-km supermagnet circuit at 22:01 Swiss time, and sent the opposing beam round the other way at midnight"

Guys, in order to get a collision you need to send the opposing beam round at the same time, not 1 hour 59 minutes later. Swiss time.

[amanfromMars 1]

Revitalisation through Virtualisation Portals ..... and Virulent Streaming Memes

"Extinction ..... Let hope an alien or two sticks another spanner in the works and stops these mad, self-serving scientists from pressing the self-destruct button." .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Sunday 22nd November 2009 12:20 GMT

A socket or a ring, AC, or how about an open ender? .... http://www.phrack.com/issues.html?issue=66&id=17#cmt1971

[Gordon Pryra]

Funding

I've never quite understoood how all this was funded.

Have they built this thing on the back of it being built at some time in the future and it actually finances itself?

Im guessing that you can only travel back in time to the point that tme travel was invented, which is why the lotterys are still working business models.

December the 3rd the last chance for it to be you?

[Nick Davey]

Preparing

I'll be at home making sure my crowbar is nice and sharp.

[Steve O'Gorman]

Cunning Plan

Much more likely than the destruction of the universe, according to top CERN brainbox Sergio Bertolucci, is that the LHC will open up a "door" into some kind of extradimensional continuum. "Something might come through" says Bertolucci, or alternatively we might sent something through to the other side.

I think John & Edward would be perfectly suited to interdimensional travel...

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

Something might come through" says Bertolucci,

"or alternatively we might sent something through to the other side."

Can it be the entire cast of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here? Pretty please?

[Secretgeek]

@Will 22

Yes I know you're comment was ages ago but I just wanted to say that I think;

"CERN physicists do it almost the speed of light."

would be a bit snappier for a t-shirt.

Just my thoughts. And now back to the (serious?) discussion....

[Francis Boyle]

Re: Something might come through" says Bertolucci,

Forget about the cast - try the executives responsible for such monstrosities - a sort of B-ark deal.

[TeeCee]

@Flakey

Nooooo! That would inevitably give rise to many thousands of small sub-insurance claims for particle dents, particle scratches and the like. Most of these would be written off as "knock for knock" and cancel each other out. However, there remains the problem of the unsettled claims. These could easily combine to form some new and unpredictable type of super-insurance claim which could, in turn, cause a catastrophic meltdown of the global financial sector, leading to The End Of The World As We Know It.

[lukewarmdog]

List

Things to send : Nu-Labour, The Taliban, a crowbar, 80s fashion, an infitessimally small part of every patent, the message "all your base are belong", WaGs, Chavs

Things to try and bring through : time and / or space travel, common sense, the answer to the question "is the grass greener over there?", a cure for hangovers, any spare doomsday devices.

I'm pretty sure the LHC is in fact a groundhog day device. Switch it on, cause the big bang, slowly work your way back to building the LHC.

Next time round someone leave a message to ourselves like.. make the machine break a couple of times. Yes that should do it.

[Campbell]

Humans

What is wrong with us? Seems to me that we are prepared to believe that something catastrophic and very bad, Earth getting sucked into a black hole, another Big Bang or Bangs, demons & monsters from other dimensions, will happen much more readily than the possibilty of some good happening, unlimited free eneregy, cure for cancer, instant erradication of all Lawyers.

Now why is that?

[amanfromMars 1]

Re Humans ....... and the Poverty they Suffer in a World of Take Away Made to Measure Wealth

I'll settle for an endless cash machine to be found, Campbell, and then all those tight miserable bastards holding the world to ransom for paper they are printing and not distributing can run for the hills and try to find a safe cave where no one will find them ..... to have a little chat about the old days and what they were thinking, doing what they are doing.

Although that discussion is already on its way in a new ARG, but it would still be a Novel Breakthrough from .....well, the Other Side, I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

@DrRosen

Sorry, I immediately discount any assertion made by someone who signs a forum post with a byline. It's among the top indicators of crankhood, along with not using paragraph breaks and referring to oneself in the third person.

-PeriSoft

[Anonymous Coward]

perfectly safe...

"no Pierre, don't worry that you can still see it with your eyes closed, this stuff is perfectly safe." Marie Curie

These collisions may happen all the time in the atmosphere but do they happen repeatedly in the same place in quick succession? And isn't the whole point of the experiment to find something out that we don't know. I'm not saying that something odd will happen but I find anyone who claims to know with certainty that nothing at all could happen quite dubios.

[Seanmon]

Send something through...

How about all the marmite? That'd freak the buggers on the other side right out...