Comments on: LHC update: it's now all-powerful

By: Rob Ca4yi

Rob Ca4yi — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:05:52 +0000

“64. Blizno Says:

It can’t be. The speed of one object relative to any other can never exceed the speed of light.
The relative speed of the two protons is closer to the speed of light than the speed of one of the protons relative to, say, Geneva but it’s still less than c.”

Oh Metaphysical/Astrophysical Guru: care to explain why the speed of light cannot be exceeded?

Clearly it can as witnessed in view of a black hole… or maybe there is more to the picture than current physics can explain..

By: Blizno

Blizno — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:43:49 +0000

“60. Michael Says:
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:29 am

And remember that there are two beams travelling in opposite direction. The relative speed of two protons colliding is almost twice the speed of light. Nice firecracker!”

By: CoolHandl

CoolHandl — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:45:10 +0000

John Baxter: Thanks! Way back when in my AP Physics class we had a running joke about c in furlongs/fortnight, because the teacher liked to give problems in mixed units. I always wondered where that came from. Of course, now I wonder how a bunch of high school geeks heard about it in the late 70s.

Re astronauts traveling to the moon at 99.999999% of c (Tau-7071), they’d better be able to stop! If I did the math right, a 60kg astronaut (sans spacecraft and space suit) hitting the moon at that speed has a KE of 3.8E+22 J, or around 9 million megatons. Goodbye moon, and not so good for the earth, either!

Ain’t relativity cool!

By: Razmus

Razmus — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:24:50 +0000

> I hope there is no antimatter hanging around that proton’s path! Kaboom!

Wouldn’t the resulting quanta of energy simply produce another particle? Like maybe another proton with an equivalent energy? (Or maybe they’d get lucky and get some other more exotic particle.) Wasn’t that the point? It would be, like, a bonus if someone got an image of that. (Do they still USE bubble chambers for that?)

By: petrolonfire

petrolonfire — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:42:16 +0000

@25. Bill Nettles Says

LHC is HOT! (Go write that on your bathroom wall.)

No fear – she might see it!

@ 58. sascha/hdrs Says:

This LHC is even more dangerous than smoking!

Well that may depend on *what* it is you’re smoking!

@ 39. eyesoars Says:

But battleships move in knots. Miles per hour. Sheesh. When’s the last time you saw one trolling around the countryside?

Last Wednesday.
But then see above about smoking!

Actually there is the space-battleship Yamato / Argo from StarBlazers although it flew in space and generally is above land …

See : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SpaceBattleshipYamato.jpg

& http://www.starblazers.com/home.php

Actually from the look of one of the pictures there the Yamato /Argo is armed with something like the LHC in its bow. 8)

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:29:51 +0000

And remember that there are two beams travelling in opposite direction. The relative speed of two protons colliding is almost twice the speed of light. Nice firecracker!

By: sascha/hdrs

sascha/hdrs — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:07:16 +0000

This LHC is even more dangerous than smoking!

By: LHC to 1.18TeV « Micro Black Holes

LHC to 1.18TeV « Micro Black Holes — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:08:59 +0000

[...] Phil Plait [...]

By: T.E.L.

T.E.L. — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:28:33 +0000

The mass of the proton is invariant; it's the same no matter how fast it's moving. The whole relativistic relationship, which incorporates velocity, is E² = p²c² + m²c⁴.

By: MichaelL

MichaelL — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:18:04 +0000

Here is a live webcam at CERN that you can monitor!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JYkMhQ9gf8