LHC Successfully Cools To 1.9K In Lead-Up To Restart 177
Smelly Jeffrey writes "The BBC is reporting that the LHC has had all eight of its sectors cooled to 1.9 Kelvin. Their tagline is that it is now 'colder than deep space,' referring to the CMB. LHC engineers have spent nearly $40,000,000 USD on a new system to prevent the 'quench' condition that caused the LHC to be down for warming, repairs, and re-cooling over the last year. The LHC is now cold enough to begin colliding particles in search of the Higgs Boson. High power collisions won't be started until late December, or perhaps early January. However, a low-power beam through parts of the collider could be tested as early as next week!"
Never mind. Missed the obvious. (Score:2, Insightful)
They're doing low-power test runs. I managed in my brilliance not to notice either that paragraph in the article or the tagline at the end of the summary. /hangs head in shame.
Re:If it's not in operation... (Score:3, Insightful)
If they do find the Higgs in January, they want to have a LOT of jello shots on hand.
Re:40 MILLION USD (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:40 MILLION USD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:40 MILLION USD (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If it's not in operation... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because cooling a 27 kilometer long object to 1.9 K takes a lot of time. You can't just keep heating it up and cooling it back down again. You cool it down once, and keep it cooled permanently.
Part of the reason this whole thing took so long in the first place was that it had to be heated up and cooled down again.
Re:If it's not in operation... (Score:3, Insightful)
At least with a black hole, if you're smart enough to stay away from the event horizon you'll be OK. We, on the other hand, are surely screwed.
Re:Huge Waste of Taxpayer Dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the food those people eat is produced using fertilizers, steel structures, engines based on petroleum combustion, transit networks, irrigation systems, computers and, ultimately, a market for the food - all of which come about because of technological advances (computers wouldn't work today if we didn't know about quantum mechanics - modern PC's are affected by quantum-scale artefacts), most of which were funded by military investment (Internet, etc.) or academic institutions, designed and implemented by people that went to university to study something other than fertilizer, using mathematics from previously theoretical subjects that they found could apply to modern physics, using even vaster ranges of technology to achieve their goals.
Did you know that the Moon missions visibly pushed scientific advancement for *decades* before and after they occurred? Did you know that previous "waste of time", purely-theoretical, large-scale, cutting-edge technology now powers most of the world, the world's satellites, thus world communications, thus enable people to even *find* those people, let alone help them?
How about that computer you just posted this troll on? Have you any idea how many man-hours it takes to build that? Considering your attitude, I should take it back, leave those raw materials in the ground and give someone a job instead... that makes sense, no? Or how about you *think* for a second about where those people are going to get their houses, pharmaceuticals, food, warmth, clothing, how they'll be found and helped and their progress tracked by your government to ensure they show up as a statistic at least?
Eighty years ago, the highest-level scientific research of splitting the "unsplittable" atom helped discover and then (50 years ago) harness the most destructive force held by man, culled from the annals of scientific research and weaponry, and now makes it power most of your country, provide pharmaceuticals, medical scanners and countless other innovations. Now think what'll happen in another 80 years when the tech discovered, manufactured and researched based on the findings of the LHC hits your country.
Re:40 MILLION USD (Score:2, Insightful)
Other than you tactfully left out the word corruption, that's the best and most succinct description of the situation I've yet read.
In such a description you necessarily have to leave out things like leaders demonizing the people they are about to attack in order to keep themselves in power and so on (I'm protecting you from those awful sub-human evil fill_in_the blank, so you need me to stay in, and increase, my power), corporations that are now more powerful than all single countries and most coalitions of them and a few other things. But it's truly an inspiring and great beginning. Hope someone else reads it.
We're let these turkeys play us too long by far.
Re:Huge Waste of Taxpayer Dollars (Score:2, Insightful)
You delivered your argument well, but you could say something similar about any scientific goal, for absolutely any amount of money. Will the LHC lead to practical technology in 80 years? You think so, but how plausible is that really and why? What if I think we should spend $20B to study the mating habits of snails and promise some huge breakthrough in 80 years, will you also think that's a good investment?
I don't know whether the LHC is worth it, so I don't necessarily disagree with you, but simply citing successful past sponsored work (and ignoring failures) isn't very convincing. Furthermore, it's of absolutely no help if we are deciding between two mutually exclusive scientific research projects.
Re:Huge Waste of Taxpayer Dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't instantly dismiss spending $20B on studying mating habits of snails. Given that snails are very helpful to farmers, and given that farmers received 10 times that in aid ($258B) in a single year and the total market is about $1.5 trillion, spending a 10% of the given aid on studying how to produce better snails could provide significant returns in the long run.
If the study resulted in just a 0.1% increase in crop production, it would pay for itself in a single year!
Re:40 MILLION USD (Score:5, Insightful)
"Restraint" implies something desired, but totally unnecessary.
When you go deeply in debt paying for college, it's not a "lack of restraint" that put you in that bad situation, but an investment, which may or may not pay off.
So why is the government so roundly critized for similarly trying to get the education dollars remotely back up to where they were (per-capita) 30+ years ago?
I guess NASA represents a lack of restraint as well.
Roads, too. As well as all forms of public transit.
The government exists specifically to pay for all those things which we all find beneficial to society, and would be impractical to do individually, or otherwise piecemeal.
And even those areas of flagrant fraud and waste, while requiring a fix, won't come close to making up the national deficit. The bailout money, while significant this year, will barely be noticeable average over the decades between major bailouts, AND would presumably end up costing everyone far more money, if that money wasn't spent where and when it was needed.
It's only on /. that the rabid libertarian sentiment doesn't get you laughed out of the room. It's idiotic on it's face.
Re:Wrong summary (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, CERN (and thus LHC) is under Swiss jurisdiction, so I'd assume the official budgetary unit is Swiss Francs.
Re:40 MILLION USD (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's try a list!
- Roads.. maybe you don't use them?
- Well regulated skies so the plane you're landing in doesn't have an unexpected conjoining with another one taking off
- A nationwide electrical grid
- Required emergency care, regardless of ability to pay (that comes out of a similar source as medicare/medicaid - without it, no pay, no treatment.. got hit by a car walking down the street? No insurance? Tough luck, bub)
- Regulated banking sys...ok. bad example.
Government may do a lot wrong, but most people take for granted the stuff they do right, that they use every day. That's a small list, but not anywhere near complete. Almost every mass transit system in the US wouldn't exist if not for public funds, and often public involvement in their yearly operations.
Mind you, most of the actual politicians need their brains washed out with lye, and lobbyists should be sequestered 20,000 leauges under the sea, and there's billions in waste every year, but if not for those governments, I doubt you'd be online right now saying how little they do. LHC is one great example of where they really shine, it's true.
Re:40 MILLION USD (Score:2, Insightful)
How is it costing us LESS money to keep the banks afloat so that housing prices can stay artificially inflated, maintaining an artificial bubble at great expense? How is it costing us LESS to spend resources on WAR, which is not an investment but money tossed in to a blackhole never to be recovered? How is it costing us LESS to pay people NOT to do things? None of those things are an investment. They're all tossing money at buying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and maintaining poorly run countries and businesses at great taxpayer expense.
Your rant set up a bunch of strawmen the GP post didn't even propose, then knocked them down leaving his original complaints completely unharmed. And you're calling his comments idiotic on their face? Then people mod you insightful? What the fuck? Is it opposite day around here?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huge Waste of Taxpayer Dollars (Score:3, Insightful)