CERN and Switzerland Prevail: Celebrating a Historical Moment!

[DevilsAvocado]

This is a historical moment – CERN and Switzerland did not turn into a Black Hole!

Here are some pictures and video from the event:


The two beams getting aligned for collision

http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2010/1003062/1003062_08/1003062_08-A4-at-144-dpi.jpg"


The Atlas detector showing first results

http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2010/1003060/1003060_02/1003060_02-A4-at-144-dpi.jpg"


The CMS detector showing first results

http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2010/1003058/1003058_06/1003058_06-A4-at-144-dpi.jpg"


First collisions of protons at 7TeV (centre of mass energy) at the Large Hadron Collider on the 30th March 2010, reported from the control centre at CERN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PE4dCTrWjU0&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PE4dCTrWjU0&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>


What's your guess? Will we find the Higgs boson, or maybe extra dimensions??

Exciting times... this is the closest to the Big Bang humans ever been...

 

[Agent M27]

I am on the edge of my seat now! I was a bit let down last year when things went hay wire. I wonder how long it will take to analyze all the data from just that single collision, let alone the several collisions per week? We are in an incredible time for physics that much is for sure.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

I am on the edge of my seat now!

I've fallen of twice already today!

I wonder how long it will take to analyze all the data from just that single collision, let alone the several collisions per week? We are in an incredible time for physics that much is for sure.

I have no good answer, but today there were about 40 collisions/sec. Later the frequency will be much much higher (bunch crossing interval of 75 ns?). It will take years to finally analyze the result in the LHC Computing Grid (detectors provide approximately 300 GB/s, and stream about 300 MB/s raw data to the Grid, expected to generate 27 TB of raw data per day).

But maybe we will get some astonishing hints on new physics before that...

Here's what's on the "LHC Menu":

• The Higgs mechanism for generating elementary particle masses via electroweak symmetry breaking.
• Is supersymmetry an extension of the Standard Model? That may clear up the mystery of Dark Matter.
• Are there extra dimensions, as predicted by various models inspired by string theory?
• Are electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force just different manifestations of a single unified force, as predicted by various Grand Unification Theories?
• Why is gravity so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces?
• Are there additional sources of quark flavours?
• Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter?
• What was the nature of the quark-gluon plasma in the early universe?

Yes, this is truly thrilling, and I have a question for the pros:

As I understand this; when LHC is looking for quark-gluon plasma (QGP), we are talking about the first hundred microseconds (10^-6) or so, in the early evolution of universe.

- When looking for supersymmetry and a single unified force, we are in the Grand unification epoch and the Planck epoch, talking about nanoseconds (10^-9). How far towards t0 (BB) can we get with the LHC?