Target 090218

Using The Biggest Pole
To Catch The Smallest Fish


The pole
A worker (on the left) lowers the detector element of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). into its underground experimental cavern. The detector will detect and record the collision of sub-atomic particles. (Photo: Mona Schweizer, CERN)


The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is preparing for its first small tests in early August, leading to a planned full-track test in September, 2009- and the first planned particle collisions before the end of the year.

The LHC is an international research project based at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, where scientists, engineers and support staff from 111 nations are combining state-of-the-art science and engineering in one of the largest scientific experiments ever conducted.

The LHC is the latest and most powerful in a series of particle accelerators that, over the last 70 years, have allowed us to penetrate deeper and deeper into the heart of matter and further and further back in time. The next steps in the journey will bring new knowledge about the beginning of our Universe and how it works, as the LHC recreates, on a microscale, conditions that existed billionths of a second after the birth of our Universe. (from http://www.lhc.ac.uk/) The experiment will find out how matter is created from pure energy, and what happens to anti-matter during the creation.

Magnets
The ring of magnets
Almost the entire 17 miles of the ring consists of large electromagnetic sections, each of which turns on as a particle approaches in order to pull it along faster, then turns off as the particle passes in order to release it to the pull of the next segment. The magnets within each of the segments fire right before the particle arrives, pulling it at a faster speed, and when the particle is inside the segment, the field collapses, so the particle can be pulled by the next magnet ahead. This continues until the speed of the particles reaches near the speed of light.

The final step before firing the particles is the chilling of the entire 17 miles of collider mechanism to -271.25 C (-456.25 F) degrees.

If a particle were to go around the ring 100 times, it would travel 1700 miles (2700 Kilometers) with each magnet perfectly synchronized to turn on and off 100 times, all in the span of around 1 one thousandth of a second. So, after years of building this massive piece of equipment, the main experiment will be started and finished by the time the person who presses the firing button has the button fully depressed.

Aerial view
You don't really realize the size of this mechanicm until you see it's location from the air. The light tan circle, barely visible in the picture, shows the size and shape of the mechanism, itself.

Added to its diameter, the depth of the mechanism below ground shows more of its enormity:
Depth

The LHC will be the largest single machine ever created by man, as well as the most expensive (around 8 billion dollars at last count) - all for the purpose of banging two particles together at the speed of light to see what happens.

For a collection of information and photographs from CERN, please visit The Hedron Collider home page.

There are many websites dealing with the Large Hadron Collider, but for a quick overall Youtube explanation, click here .

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Many thanks to Ray McClure for suggesting and programming this target.