We’ve been waiting decades for this and here it is - first collisions at the LHC! WooHoo! The ATLAS detector saw the first collision this afternoon, followed soon by CMS. The machine was then tuned to give the LHCb and ALICE detectors collisions this evening, so all 4 experiments have had a taste of the fruit. The machine energy is set to the injection energy, 450 GeV per beam, which is a very safe way to start. They expect to ramp up to 1.2 TeV per beam to achieve the world’s highest energy collisions just before Christmas.
Here is the event display for the first collision in CMS:
Looks like 2 hard jets. A running commentary of the day’s events at CMS can be found here.
Let the science begin!
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Okay. So which one is the Higgs?
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
That blue one in the top left.
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
When I was young (well, a long time ago) the first thing we let appear on the screens of new machines was PRINT “Hello World!”. Seems the picture above is the LHC-version
Congratulations to the folks at CERN. Dear LHC: Welcome to the world. And now: Please enlighten us ! Tell us something about the world we live in !!!
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
No, the blue on in the top left is a Camaro exhaust.
Its the green one on th elower right display, radiating out from the center at 9:30.
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Tonight I will toast the LHC accelerator people as well as the experimenters on all 4 experiments for all their blood, sweat & tears over the last years. We are entering a new era that has been a very long time coming..AT LEAST 27 years (since my first supercollider paper)!
Here here!
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I can already feel the Black Hole.. It is slowly pulling my body apart… those jerks! They knew this would happen. I am stretching and once I hit the event horizon, my body will be ripped apart.
Where’s my calculator…? Ripping my body to shreds should only take… another 31 billion years… damn them.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Congrats to CERN, the LHC, and all involved. It has been a long hard road, fraught with difficulty, but you finally can begin your great journey of discovery.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
[...] for more information: CERN Press Release A Cosmic Variance Blog Post A different Cosmic Variance author, with more information CMS [...]
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 pm
That is really an amazing accomplishment! Congrats to the whole LHC team.
November 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 pm
holy sh*t!!!!!! we’re gonna f***ing die!!!!!!111111
November 24th, 2009 at 1:06 am
so taxpayers spent billions just to get a good look at this picture? great!!!
i felt there’s a disruption of space time continuum….
while watching TV online, my screen goes black and on again..this happens a few times…
this morning my car’s audio player got funny noises….and skipped tracks..
did you guys experience any symptoms?
November 24th, 2009 at 2:21 am
“….to achieve the world’s highest energy collisions just before Christmas”
let me guess…December 21?
November 24th, 2009 at 4:05 am
Here come the black holes! Just be greatful that they “dissolve within seconds”, right?
Right?
RIGHT?
:/
November 24th, 2009 at 6:35 am
It’s a wonderful achievement of mankind, and is greatly appreciated by those who understand the complexity of the machine and appreciate it’s ability to answer some very profound questions. For those who don’t understand, it might as well be the devil.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:03 am
looks like linux
November 24th, 2009 at 7:58 am
SpaceTimeContinuum —- Ya my phone has been making really crazy noises. Especially when on speaker phone.
November 24th, 2009 at 8:23 am
[...] erst ATLAS und CMS, dann ALICE und LHCb. Dass es dabei überhaupt zu einer nenneswerten Zahl von Zusammenstößen kam, ist erstaunlich, sind doch drastisch weniger Protonen unterwegs als später im Regelbetrieb [...]
November 24th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
It is indeed Linux.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
[...] LHC! WooHoo! The ATLAS detector saw the first collision this afternoon, followed soon by CMS.Source:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/11/23/collisions/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_me... ( Leave a comment [...]
November 26th, 2009 at 9:37 am
[...] Content: Cosmic Variance: First Collisions in the LHC! Cosmic Variance: Collisions! 80beats: LHC Flings Protons Once Again; Scientists Celebrate With Caution DISCOVER: A Tumultuous [...]
November 27th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
[...] Content: Cosmic Variance: First Collisions in the LHC! Cosmic Variance: Collisions! 80beats: LHC Flings Protons Once Again; Scientists Celebrate With Caution DISCOVER: A Tumultuous [...]