Comments on: LHC photoshoot

By: El Gran Colisionador de Hadrones (II) « Pasa la vida

El Gran Colisionador de Hadrones (II) « Pasa la vida — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:16:40 +0000

[...] Vía Bad Astronomy Blog [...]

By: Bodi Thung

Bodi Thung — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:22:34 +0000

OK, I’m missing something.
The caption reads:
“The Magnet Core
Winding the solenoid coil of the CMS took five years to complete. When it is fully operational, it will generate a magnetic field 100,000 times stronger than the one produced by the Earth.”
Where does this explain why the image is blurred?

By: Coffeeassured

Coffeeassured — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:48:00 +0000

From what I have heard there are some MRI machines that get up to about 2-3T and there hasn’t been any kind of obvious damage to patients (yet) but there are some concerns about what high strength might do someones health. Though in this case I think it is probably somewhat academic as from what I understand the hallway will be bathed with all kinds of interesting radiation once everything it up and running.

By: CafeenMan

CafeenMan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:13:07 +0000

Ok, now I feel like an idiot. I totally forgot you have a forum.

By: CafeenMan

CafeenMan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:09:01 +0000

Phil – I’m a regular reader of your blog and sometimes poster. I apologize for the O/T but I keep thinking of questions I want to ask and you don’t have a place for that.

So I’d like to propose you have a place for people like me to post our questions and you can start a topic on them if you think they’re interesting enough.

I read your e-mail page and don’t want to bombard you with more. I get a lot of it myself and often delete real mail accidentally so I don’t see why it can’t happen to me.

Lastly, for quite some time now, my posts are flagged for moderation as potential spam.

I’m pretty sure it has something to do with my e-mail/website combination. But a lot of times my comments don’t get posted until way later so I’m functionally not a part of the conversation. I don’t know if you can fix that or not.

Thanks for the great blog!

By: Sanity

Sanity — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:54:00 +0000

Also, does anyone know if they will set up some kind of distributed computing system? I’ve got some spare cycles that i’m willing to donate to science.

(the World Community Grid will just have to settle for half my overhead)

By: Sanity

Sanity — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:47:32 +0000

Well, if it’s 100.000 times stronger then the 0.00005 Tesla field of the earth, that puts it at 5 T

A 3 Tesla MRI is strong enough to do this to a chair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uzJPpC4Wuk

So I asume standing near the active LHC with a pacemaker or metal on your bones will be… how to describe it… Chestburster like.

By: GDwarf

GDwarf — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:34:52 +0000

Both. At least, that was my impression.

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:49:12 +0000

Phil did write an entry about how low the chances are that the LHC will destroy the Earth.

The physics that say a black hole would be made by the LHC also say that such a BH would decay withing too short a time to be a hazard to the Earth (or something like that).

Question:

What is the main hazard from being too close to the magnet of the LHC when in operation? Is is hot, or is it the field?

By: lumpcouch

lumpcouch — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:05:22 +0000

Some people are concerned that this thing will destroy the Earth by creating a black hole…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzugu39pKM

Phil Plait to the rescue?

By: madge

madge — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:34:42 +0000

@Levi
As far as I know the latest date is in July some time. I can’t wait!

By: hangar

hangar — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:15:26 +0000

aporeticus: 1990 – 1974 = 16.

Still, not being able to tell the difference between the net and the web has, indeed, been pretty in-excusable for at least half that long.

By: aporeticus

aporeticus — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:01:47 +0000

The forum mangled my acronym for World Wide Web. Sorry.

By: aporeticus

aporeticus — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:00:02 +0000

Founded in 1952, CERN has been the location of some of the world's most important scientific developments. Tim Berners-Lee, commonly regarded as the father of the Internet, successfully tested his idea for the world wide web here in 1990.

Except that the Internet is some 26 years older than WWW. That's some good reporting, Time.

By: Sili

Sili — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:44:42 +0000

Jealous. So very very jealous.

By: Jewel

Jewel — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:23:26 +0000

@Tim — I’m jealous! I would love to visit CERN.

That is, indeed, a very impressive picture of the CMS detector. Very pretty.

By: John B. Sandlin

John B. Sandlin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 19:10:28 +0000

100,000 times as strong locally – I wanna see men make one 100,000 times as large and 100,000 times as strong… we might need such a field for something like the mythical hydrogen ram scoop in science fiction space travel.

JBS

By: Levi

Levi — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:39:29 +0000

Any idea when this thing is supposed to finally be up and running?

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:22:18 +0000

I had the opportunity to visit CERN and see the CMS detector as well. Time’s photos are better, of course, but: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tgerla/sets/72157604515483441/

Phil, I’ll see you at TAM6!

-Tim

By: serenity

serenity — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:20:39 +0000

According to wikipedia: “It was recently announced that the [CMS] magnet will run at 3.8T instead of the full design strength [4T] in order to maximize longevity.”
It’s not that 3.8 tesla isn’t impressive, because it is!

Don’t take this as me trying to correct you, either; it’s not as if 1) this magnet is the only one at the LHC and 2) wikipedia is 100% correct all of the time.

By: Pieter Kok

Pieter Kok — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:15:31 +0000

serenity, the LHC will operate at about 8 Tesla (you don’t want to stand too close to that, even if you don’t have a pacemaker), and a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin.

By: serenity

serenity — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:03:19 +0000

I think I remember reading it was 3 Tesla? (I have no idea what the earth’s magnetic field is, although I could find out in 30 seconds)

Anyway, 3 Tesla = MRI.

By: Matthew Reynolds

Matthew Reynolds — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:34:05 +0000

Woah. At that strength, that thing must be huge. I saw the video of you there demonstrating the scale, but it didn’t sink in until now how huge it is.