I want to build a particle accelerator

[ShayanJ]

In one of the MIT video lectures given by Walter Lewin,I saw he showed the students a sample of a radioactive material(don't remember what it was) and used a certain liquid(I think it was some kind of alcohol,and it was cooled)to show the particles' trajectories
I know its not a good idea to work with radioactive materials but I guess that's better than trying to build a particle accelerator which is almost obviously not possible and as people mentioned,dangerous.
Firstly,as people mentioned several times,you need to know quantum mechanics and you need to know it well.
Secondly,As again people mentioned,if you just learned calculus,it means you DON'T know electromagnetism.
Thirdly,Building a particle accelerator,I think,involves some challenges,both in physics and engineering and it needs experts in both fields.
I can sit here and think to write fourthly... fifthly...sixthly...But don't want to waste time
I just want to tell you I know how you feel but the best thing you can do now,is achieving a firm understanding in physics and of course learning mathematics and I can tell,with some effort,some day you will be in an accelerator building project.

 

[salzrah]

IMHO always try to learn the scientific theory behind something completely, inside and out, then try implementing that scientific theory in experiments/projects. Also, the more theory/concepts you learn, the "cooler" more advanced projects you can do. Eventually, you'll reach a point when there is no more theory left to learn and you can do experiments to find new undiscovered concepts and make new theories (which, crudely speaking, is what scientists do).

And don't EVER let anyone tell you that you can't do something. Just keep everything in perspective -- that is key.

 

[Gloyn]

What Walter Lewin did was probably the Wilson's chamber. Not a big deal really, you don't need any radioactive material. All you need is to create a isopropanol's vapour in a see-through container (probably by cooling it with dry ice) and you can detect the particles coming from space. Did it, so I know it works :).

And stop with that american dream speaches, yes we can etc. If guy is smart and will keep his interest alive he'll do what he wants. Instead of empty speaches give the lad some facts that he can use.

I'll serch for those circuits schemes and probably tomorrow will let you know what I got.

 

[Gloyn]

...

Whoops, sorry for that doubble post but I haven't noticed that my post went to the other page so I posted it again. My bad.

 

[guss]

I love the electric car idea. How long do you think it would take? More importantly, how much would it cost?

It depends on how quickly you work and how exactly you want to build it. The nice thing about the electric car is that it's a long term project that you can sort of work slowly on.

You could either build the car entirely from scratch, or transform an existing gas car. I think I would go with the second option. Building an electric car is cool, but you also might want to try to do something one one has done before. The way to do that with something like the electric car is to build it as cheap as possible. The most expensive part of an electric car is the battery, and the systems that manage the battery, like its temperature and stuff. I *think* it would be possible to build an electric car battery and battery manager for less than $700 with old computer batteries and maybe a an arduino or something like it with some sort of cooling mechanism.

The part that might give you trouble is a suitable motor. You would probably want at least a 150 horsepower electric motor, and it would obviously be difficult to build that from scratch. You might be able to find one on ebay or something for less than $1000, but I'm really not sure. Someone might even be willing to give you one for free.

But obviously those are just two components, but the most important components. There are many more difficulties but it's possible to overcome them with hard work.

So, I don't know, maybe you could try to build a battery for cheap first, then branch out from there? There's a lot of physics in the battery too. It might seem expensive, but do research and have a plan before you buy anything. Generalize the battery management system for different sized batteries, then you can gradually add on battery cells. If you really tried, you could probably even find fried laptops with working batteries for free and build the whole thing for ~$100.

 

[guitarphysics]

Is this website a good source of info on making a magnetic levitron? http://www.bis0uhr.de/projekte/schwebekugel/english.php%99http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CFYQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bis0uhr.de%2Fprojekte%2Fschwebekugel%2Fenglish.php&ei=nst9UK7cIc650QGTj4DAAw&usg=AFQjCNEta-ZyAMior76ebj9Fsoxpw0MaAg&sig2=85Oe8ev2u7Jv_685HU_LUw

 

[Bobbywhy]

Is this website a good source of info on making a magnetic levitron? http://www.bis0uhr.de/projekte/schwebekugel/english.php%99http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CFYQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bis0uhr.de%2Fprojekte%2Fschwebekugel%2Fenglish.php&ei=nst9UK7cIc650QGTj4DAAw&usg=AFQjCNEta-ZyAMior76ebj9Fsoxpw0MaAg&sig2=85Oe8ev2u7Jv_685HU_LUw

This website appears to be an excellent guide to building a "levitron". I suggest you translate all that German text to avoid guesses and be sure of the details so as to not make mistakes. You can use "Google translate" to do so.

Let us know here on Physics Forums how your levitron works!

Cheers,
Bobbywhy

 

[Gloyn]

Oh damn, I forgot about this thread!

Here are the links from me. Two, a bit different models of levitrons. Both have the schemes of circuits and a list of necessary components. Unfortunately, both .pdfs are in polish, but you don't need much more that to know, that:

Rezystroy = resistors
kondensatory = capacitors
półprzewodniki = semiconductors
pozostałe = other

IMO the 2nd one has better view on circuit and is a bit easier to build.
The general idea is that you put a infrared diod pointing at fotoresistor . Now, the object that you want to levitate, has to block part of the light emited by the diod. Therefore, as object goes down, more light is transmited onto fotoresistor and it's resistance grows and the difference of potentials in circuit containing this resistor changes. This is how we gat the information about the location of of the object. Then the signal goes to the circuit that diferentiates the information about the location, that is it checks how fast object changes its location, and that quantity is called velocity. Now we know objects location and velocity. This signal goes into aplifier and then stright to the magnet's controller, so if the object goes down, the magnetic field gets stronger and vice versa. Sorry if that's not very clear :s. If you need to translate sth. just let me know.

http://sklep.avt.pl/photo/_pdf/AVT2741-1.pdf

http://sklep.avt.pl/photo/_pdf/AVT2741-2.pdf

 

[ZapperZ]

So this thread went from building an accelerator to a cloud chamber, to a levitron?

You guys can't stick to a single topic, can you?

Zz.

 

[Naty1]

regarding every day accelerators...like my vacuum tube suggestion ...

check out cathode ray tubes in TV's and klystrons...

these offer some simple insights about accelerating particles which you can understand
without a lot of complications...

there is slick illustration here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klystron

 

[guitarphysics]

Thanks for all the great suggestions everyone, but ZapperZ is right. We've digressed a bit too much. These ideas will keep me busy for quite a while! Again thanks for everything, you've given me a lot to think about.