CERN | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Fri, 29 May 2015 09:40:03 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png CERN | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Large Hadron Collider breaks world record for high energy collisions https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/large-hadron-collider-breaks-world-record-for-high-energy-collisions/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/large-hadron-collider-breaks-world-record-for-high-energy-collisions/#respond Fri, 29 May 2015 09:40:03 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=251653 The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has broken a lot of records in its day and it can now tick another one off of the list, by producing the highest-energy, human-made, particle collisions, breaching 13 teraelectronvolts (TeV). To put that into perspective, the movement of a mosquito is about one TeV and the LHC researchers managed …

The post Large Hadron Collider breaks world record for high energy collisions first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has broken a lot of records in its day and it can now tick another one off of the list, by producing the highest-energy, human-made, particle collisions, breaching 13 teraelectronvolts (TeV). To put that into perspective, the movement of a mosquito is about one TeV and the LHC researchers managed to pack 13 times as much energy into single proton collisions.

These collisions were in reality tests, to make sure that key components of the 17 mile long particle collider will be protected from particles that stay from the edges of the beam during testing that will take place in June. It's an important process, since the reason that the LHC previously faced so much downtime was because there was “a problem with the super conduction magnets interconnections,” said one researchers in the LHC AMA held this week. This meant that the collider could only be ramped up to four TeV per beam. Now it can handle 6.5 and the team wants to go even further.

alice
Let's just all pretend we know what's going on here

It's believed that the LHC will be able to hit 14 TeV for centre of mass collisions in the future, so part of the next year's worth of testing and design tweaks will involve making sure that it's safe to operate at such high energies.

This is however the physical limit imposed by the current size of the collider's circumference and the ability for the magnets to stand up to the high ampage of the current running through them. As it stands, they already handle up to 12,000 amps. One theorised proton-proton accelerator would see a ring built that was around 100 KM in circumference and would be able to handle up to 50 TeV per beam.

KitGuru Says: While many people may wonder why such experiments as the LHC's particle collisions take place, one of the CERN researchers left a great explanation that's worth reprinting in its entirety:

“In 1800 the study of electricity and magnetism were considered an highly theoretical study with no practical uses. at most was used for circus shows. once understood by means of theory and experiments it shaped the modern world. Try to think how could you live without electricity. The research we are carrying out at CERN may seem far from everyday life today however will bring forward our knowledge of the natural phenomena and it has already practical spin offs. For instance accelerator technology is used for inoperable cancer surgery and as you may know the software protocol that powers the web was invented at CERN.”

Remember that next time someone wonders aloud why we would ‘risk' creating miniature black holes. 

The post Large Hadron Collider breaks world record for high energy collisions first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/jon-martindale/large-hadron-collider-breaks-world-record-for-high-energy-collisions/feed/ 0
CERN finds difference between Matter and Anti Matter https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/harrison/cern-finds-difference-between-matter-and-anti-matter/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/harrison/cern-finds-difference-between-matter-and-anti-matter/#comments Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:06:10 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=133074 When you spend close to $10 billion on the Large Hadron Collider, it's nice if – every now and then – you can release a little good news into the world to justify the spend. The folks are CERN have done just that. Smashing. Science is a lot about theorising (guessing) and then experimenting (blowing …

The post CERN finds difference between Matter and Anti Matter first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
When you spend close to $10 billion on the Large Hadron Collider, it's nice if – every now and then – you can release a little good news into the world to justify the spend. The folks are CERN have done just that. Smashing.

Science is a lot about theorising (guessing) and then experimenting (blowing stuff up etc) to see if the guess was good.

It's fundamental to humanity – and you can see it in every kid that picks up a couple of Lego bricks and begins building/banging/eating them.

Slightly more advanced than a toddler breaking stuff, we have the European Organisation for Nuclear Research – known by the obvious letters CERN. (Ed-The name CERN is derived from the acronym for the French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, a provisional body founded in 1952 with the mandate of establishing a world-class fundamental physics research organization in Europe.)

They have just scored another success in the search for differences in behaviour between matter and anti-matter particles.

Those differences could be used to explain why a universe that (theoretically) started as a balanced amount of matter and anti-matter, now appears to be almost all matter.

Pierluigi Campana, who spends his time explaining complex stuff to regular folks, said of the LHC's latest success, “The discovery of the asymmetric behaviour in the particle comes with a significance of more than 5 sigma, a result that was only possible thanks to the large amount of data provided by the LHC and to the LHCb detector's particle identification capabilities. Experiments elsewhere have not been in a position to accumulate a large enough number”.

Now it's easy to see why he's the spokesperson – cos he makes it all seem so simple.

At a much lower level, CERN has discovered big differences in behaviour for a sub-atomic particle when encountered in its matter or anti-matter variants. This is about to kick off a storm of new research.

Where-did-the-anti-matter-go-KitGuru

.
KitGuru says: It's hard to see how any one of the discoveries from the LHC is significant, but you just know that when it comes to the end of its life – there will be a really cool 1 hour documentary on TV, showing just how significant the LHC was.

Comment below, in the KitGuru forum or join us over at Facebook.

The post CERN finds difference between Matter and Anti Matter first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/channel/science/harrison/cern-finds-difference-between-matter-and-anti-matter/feed/ 1
Higgs Boson more confirmed than it was last year https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/higgs-bosun-more-confirmed-than-it-was-last-year/ https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/higgs-bosun-more-confirmed-than-it-was-last-year/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:00:25 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=128198 In July last year, scientists, nerds and humanists all celebrated as one at what looked likely to be the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Or at least, the discovery of data that seemed to suggest the Higgs Boson had a shadow and we might have seen it. Since then a lot more data has been …

The post Higgs Boson more confirmed than it was last year first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
In July last year, scientists, nerds and humanists all celebrated as one at what looked likely to be the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Or at least, the discovery of data that seemed to suggest the Higgs Boson had a shadow and we might have seen it. Since then a lot more data has been analysed and CERN is now much more confident that indeed last year's Large Hadron Collider run did discover the Higgs Boson.

According to a release by CERN, the research facility that houses the LHC and a couple thousand insanely smart individuals, over 2.5 times more data has now been analysed and it's now not really a question of whether it was the Higgs that was recorded, but what type. “The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is,” said Joe Incandela, a spokesperson at CERN.

Yes apparently there could be more than one type: the standard Higgs as we've come to know it or one of several different types, as predicted by other scientific theories. The monotheist scientists among you may think that more than one type of god particle is pure blasphemy, but the argument is there nonetheless.

Higgs
This is what a Higgs might look like. Maybe.

However the general consensus seems to be that it's probably the “standard” Higgs, since the results show a particle that has no spin and a positive parity – and this is exactly how the Higgs is postulated to behave.

“The beautiful new results represent a huge effort by many dedicated people. They point to the new particle having the spin-parity of a Higgs boson as in the Standard Model. We are now well started on the measurement programme in the Higgs sector,” says ATLAS spokesperson Dave Charlton.

The Higgs Boson came into theoretical existence in 1964, when Peter Higgs and six other physicists proposed the mechanism that suggested such a particle.

KitGuru Says: This is exciting stuff. Its like looking through a super microscope crossed with a time machine.

The post Higgs Boson more confirmed than it was last year first appeared on KitGuru.]]>
https://www.kitguru.net/channel/jon-martindale/higgs-bosun-more-confirmed-than-it-was-last-year/feed/ 2