The collisions are coming! The collisions are coming!
Yes, CERN scientists opened the bubbly last Wednesday after their first successful tests of the Large Hadron Collider’s particle-firing parts. But none of those secrets-of-the-universe-revealing proton collisions have actually happened yet. Never fear, LHC chief Lyn Evans told The Telegraph—next week could be the week.
Initially, the scientists planned to let about a month lapse between the initial firing of the beams and the first collisions. But Evans says things have been moving fast. There was a setback this week—thunderstorms temporarily cut power to the cryogenic units that keeps the collider’s parts extra, extra cold. The problem has been fixed, however, and the scientists hope to restart the beam tomorrow.
Then, the smashing can commence. The beam will begin at 10 or 20 percent of the LHC’s energy potential, and slowly increase in strength. After that, with all the introductory procedures and doomsday naysayers safely behind them, maybe the CERN scientists will actually do some, you know, science.
Image: CERN
September 17th, 2008 at 11:05 am
This a very exciting time for physics. What is the date scheduled for the experiment and when can we expect a report about initial findings?
September 17th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Sadly, there will STILL be panic from the rubes living in my area…
September 21st, 2008 at 12:31 pm
O boy i cant wait to see what happons. I am hopeing that it creats a clean energy that we can use for everything, but if it dose how mouh power will it be? I also hope it dose not hurt the computers and the collider’s particle-firing parts, so we can begen to use the power it makes.