It's Intermission for the Large Hadron Collider

[TexasTowelie]

The largest machine ever built is shutting down for two years of upgrades. Take an immersive tour of the collider and study the remnants of a Higgs particle in augmented reality.


MEYRIN, Switzerland — There is silence on the subatomic firing range.

A quarter-century ago, the physicists of CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, bet their careers and their political capital on the biggest and most expensive science experiment ever built, the Large Hadron Collider.

The collider is a kind of microscope that works by flinging subatomic particles around a 17-mile electromagnetic racetrack beneath the French-Swiss countryside, smashing them together 600 million times a second and sifting through the debris for new particles and forces of nature. The instrument is also a time machine, providing a glimpse of the physics that prevailed in the early moments of the universe and laid the foundation for the cosmos as we see it today.

The reward came in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs boson, a long-sought particle that helps explain why there is mass, diversity and life in the cosmos. The discovery was celebrated with champagne and a Nobel prize.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/21/science/cern-large-hadron-collider-ar-ul.html

[lastlib]

1. I was always mad that Reagan killed our supercollider.....

Now, I'm thinking it's probably a good thing that some of our people don't play with subatomic particles.

[Lars39]

2. We have hundreds of scientists here that are working with CERN on ATLAS project.

[byronius]

3. I'm reading Don Lincoln's book on the LHC right now.

Very cool.