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The Biggest Thing in Physics

discovermagazine.com — Near the west end of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, buried under the river plain of the Rh ône, workers are fitting together the final pieces of the machine that hopes to unlock one of the biggest mysteries of the universe. It has taken over 20 years, $8 billion, and the combined efforts of more than 60 countries...

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  • geekchic, on 10/10/2007, -2/+34I had the pleasure of a visit to CERN a couple of years ago to see components of ATLAS being constructed prior to being lowered down into the underground chambers.

    The musuem they have there is very good, and unlike many places not "dumbed down" to appeal to primary school kids.
  • suxmonkey, on 10/10/2007, -2/+46"Each magnet must be kept at –456 degrees Fahrenheit—colder than the void between galaxies—requiring CERN to build the world’s biggest cryogenic system to handle the 185,000 gallons of liquid helium that will be used to chill the magnets." Truth can, in fact, be more awesome than fiction. Thank you physics!
    • esbern1, on 10/10/2007, -6/+3why didn't he just say absolute zero? (or as close as they possibly could get it i guess)
      • DeskFlyer, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Because -456F is not one of your choices.
      • dantidote, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15Because they're scientists.
        • CeeJayDK, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Scientists use Celsius and Kelvin , not Fahrenheit.
      • dacheetah, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4It's a good 2.01 degrees Kelvin/Centigrade above absolute zero.
        (It's also slightly colder than the liquid-gas phase change of helium, so there may be a few minor errors, possibly caused by rounding things off in order to dumb it down for the general public.)
    • subterfuge, on 10/10/2007, -9/+5dugg down for using a frustrating and obsolete system of measurement
  • ramong, on 10/10/2007, -8/+2Brain freeze!! too much info, data overload!
  • bearded, on 10/10/2007, -3/+46One of these days scientists are going to accidentally create a black hole and suck us all in.
    • Zarokima, on 10/10/2007, -0/+28Well, at least then we'd know for sure what exactly happens when something goes through a black hole.
      • miriclaire, on 10/10/2007, -1/+19Actually, it has already been stated by scientists there that if the experiment goes wrong, one of the theoretical outcomes is that the earth is sucked into a black hole that the accelerator creates. I would advise against a start date of December, 2012.
        • TenebrousX, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15the only black hole it can create is very very small. The black hole would lose its energy through radiation and vanish before it could grow
        • HouseofEl, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10Actually there is the possibility that it creates a strangelet. That would be a bad day for everyone on the planet. However, the chances that it creates one that destroys the Earth are very small and most likely if one is created it will not have that result. BUT there is still a chance.
          • KaneDragon, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8Chuck Norris eats strangelets for breakfast.
      • subterfuge, on 10/10/2007, -10/+2when something goes through a black hole, it gets AIDS.
    • sarge96, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1That.. would... be... so... AWESOME!
    • Casedot, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Not gonna happen...
      http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CCC72-2AED-1264-980683414B7F0000&sc=I100322
      • atdakore, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Maybe not, but if this thing fails in a major way the whole world will know about it very quickly.
    • groo68, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5thats probably how all black holes really start, and a supernova is a sun being pulled in and feeding a black hole on a once inhabited planet.
  • Error601, on 10/10/2007, -6/+38That can't be true. The only purpose of science is to bash religion.
  • captinherb, on 10/10/2007, -1/+24I can't help but sometimes think that this explains the Fermi paradox. Eventually every civilization builds something like this and then....
    • Disneyisevil50, on 10/10/2007, -4/+3Luckily the civilization is Switzerland
    • danlas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Wasn't one of the associated groups in the article called "Fermilab"?
    • beatnikwriter, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Thanks for introducing me to the Fermi paradox.
  • SuperWinner, on 10/10/2007, -2/+30I think the most interesting thing in Physics is that particles can transmit information back in time to themselves... thats completely cool.
    • dacheetah, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Quantum eraser is most awesome experiment ever!
      Somehow I must find out how they do this, so I can send exam answers back in time to myself.
  • coldskool, on 10/10/2007, -3/+26Our own universe could be a fleeting particle inside another universes accelerator!
    • nreynolds, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14if that turns out to be true, i'll give you 20 dollars... and 3 meta-universe dollars.
    • rnwen2750, on 10/10/2007, -2/+3Wow, you just broke my brain.
      • Disneyisevil50, on 10/10/2007, -1/+17Does your brain run off Windows ME?
        • KaneDragon, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0I just installed Win 2000 over mine, the universe is saved!
        • Kr4t05, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Pfft... As soon as the Linux kernel is ported, I'll be leaving all you guys behind. :)
        • dacheetah, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I'm not sure, but when I think really hard about the folder "C:/CON/CON" I suddenly fall unconscious.
      • rmeddy, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1You have just mind raped me.
    • krizhere, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2I hope it's just an accelerator and not a collider...
  • diggface5000, on 10/10/2007, -1/+26"The collisions at LHC could spray out strange new kinds of matter, unfurl hidden dimensions of space, even generate tiny glowing reenactments of the birth of the universe."

    This is both the most exciting and most frightening aspect of the LHC.
  • esbern1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16check this out. It is a 3 dimensional tour of the facility, and they even added cool little sound effects to make one of the best web virtual reality sites i've ever seen:
    http://www.petermccready.com/portfolio/05091902.html
  • miriclaire, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16The Hadron Accelerator makes it to Digg about once a month, I think. Nonetheless, I would never digg it down as a duplicate. It is far too interesting and this headline is right on. Does anyone have the link to the little animation where you can spot a Higg yourself? That was so cool!
    • BossKey, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Eventually, scientists manage to create "The Biggest Thing in Physics" using a device called "The HardOn Accelerator."
      • subterfuge, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6they already did. they named it Viagra.
  • alabamasucks, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2I feel smarter reading that article... maybe I'll tell my grandkids the day the ATLAS started.... and forever changed life.... ehh... now back to my Madden
  • mattgilberg, on 10/10/2007, -2/+17"He tells me that the detectors will generate a million gigabytes of data per second." holy *****.....
    • Disneyisevil50, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I'm pretty sure they will only take a look at a random sampling
    • subterfuge, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7jesus! i had to look up the name of that much data: a petabyte!
    • HairyFotr, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1There is a BOINC LHC project, but so far it has only been used to optimize certain parts of the LHC. It could be used to process the data it generates as well.
  • nakile, on 10/10/2007, -6/+9Wow. They can do all that with 8 million dollars?

    What can the US do with 1 trillion dollars?
    • redxninja, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14The US can makes all of it disappear in a flash.
    • Disneyisevil50, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9BILLION

      What could the US do with a trillion dollars? Fund the Military Industrial Complex?
    • mweels, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Wow, you guys are getting real original around here.
      • PieterOpie, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0gee.... now that was original.........
    • Rossoneri22, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5no, but they can do that with 8 billion.
    • grumpyrain, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7Only out by a factor of 1000. It is 8 billion.
  • redxninja, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1So this this will explain where mass comes from.
    • PieterOpie, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Maybe.... but only maybe.

      I suppose now all the other science disciplines are going to want some new expensive toy as well....... It never ends with these geeks.
      • Stratochief66, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Yep, give them a quanta and they take an iota, but give you a new dimension.
  • JohnFrazee, on 10/10/2007, -5/+0check out "nova now" : http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3410/02.html
  • rockforever, on 10/10/2007, -2/+32"Good morning Mr. Freeman"
    • ivosilva, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8You just scared me. I wonder if there's a guard named Barney...
    • neodorian, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I was thinking more of "Out of This World" but Half Life would work too I guess.
    • jhaks, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1One of the scientists is named Barney.
  • Shiftgood, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2they smart people.
  • chubbybubba, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2I'm excited....but admit I'm very fearful at the same time... with every great discovery and invention one must consider its potential to destroy the world!
    (insert maniacal laughter here)
  • crazymonkey1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7"This is uncharted territory: The collisions at LHC could spray out strange new kinds of matter, unfurl hidden dimensions of space, even generate tiny glowing reenactments of the birth of the universe." ***** awesome.
  • mweels, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Im sure the first people that played with fire got burnt. Hope these guys dont, that's a crazy fire.
  • beasty_dave_Mk2, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3“The dawning of the sea otter!”
  • dirtyhand, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2midochlorians ?!
  • 3wiid, on 10/10/2007, -1/+20Im in ur particulz giving them mass
    • sarge96, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2AWESOME. No Idea why ur being dugg down.
  • scabbers, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14Hahah! We're all going to die, aren't we?
  • subterfuge, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6we could have built more than 50 of those in america instead of going to war.
  • murty, on 10/10/2007, -4/+2ma head asplode!
  • imomushi8, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4you guys might find this interesting:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider
    • Dougman82, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Pretty sad, actually, that such interesting projects get cancelled because a few senators think money should go elsewhere.
  • christoast, on 09/04/2008, -3/+1oh i thought it was ur mom
  • DimensionalPunk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6I'm glad the rest of the world is able to pick up where the USA is unwilling/able to continue.

    FTFA
    "What if neither team finds the elusive particle or rule that explains everything—will all this have been worth it? “This whole complex detector probably only costs the same as one super next-generation bomber to drop bombs better,” Goldfarb says. “But the sole purpose of this is to figure out the universe. I’d rather have people working on something like this.”"
  • DimensionalPunk, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Does anyone know what the odds are in Vegas?
    • Shadowhawk109, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1We're Corellian. Never tell us the odds.
  • sarge96, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Nice to see that at least one country in the world is advancing physics... But Georgie wouldn't want that... Science is dangerous...
  • BelieveItYo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1So basically we're going to get blown up.
  • bauxzaux, on 10/10/2007, -5/+0Ohmygod it's HALO!!!!!
  • shawnbttu, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Quote from the article:
    "The reason is a fundamental principle of science: Experimental results must always be confirmed through duplication. In earlier decades, there was more or less a parity of atom-smashing capabilities between the United States and Europe, each leapfrogging and confirming the results of the other in turn. But when America abandoned its plans to build the Superconducting Super Collider in 1993 (with $2 billion spent and 14 miles of tunnel already dug in Texas), it left the LHC without a peer. So to prevent any embarrassing excursions into the scientific wilderness, CERN decided to build two detectors with independent teams, each to check the results of the other. As the exact properties of the Higgs are unknown, two different designs also allows CERN to hedge its bets."
    ----
    Of Course we did...Had to fight them damn terrorists right. I dont even know my own country anymore :(
  • witte, on 10/10/2007, -7/+6As a Republican, when I read this, I prepared to be ashamed:

    "In earlier decades, there was more or less a parity of atom-smashing capabilities between the United States and Europe, each leapfrogging and confirming the results of the other in turn. But when America abandoned its plans to build the Superconducting Super Collider in 1993 (with $2 billion spent and 14 miles of tunnel already dug in Texas), it left the LHC without a peer."

    But then I discovered this:

    http://www.optimist123.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/06/25/sscvotes2.png

    So lo and behold it was actually Democrats who killed the Superconducting Supercollider, some of whom are still over there in D.C, refusing to leave and go home after all these years (14 YEARS LATER! OMG don't these sleazeballs make a damn good case for term limits!). Not only did they kill the SSC, but that same intrepid '93 Democrat-controlled appropriations subcommittee also killed the U.S. Space Station.

    So thanks, Nancy Pelosi '93. Sure, plenty of science comes from private enterprise, because this is freaking America and nothing can stop us. But here's a tip: when a science experiment has an $8 billion price tag, that usually means it needs some goddamn public assistance. The kind of generous Federal assistance you decided to give instead to the pioneering "International Museum for Women at Pier 26", or the groundbreaking "Family Violence Prevention Fund", or the life-changing 'Bloomingdales Filipino Cultural Center' or the universally-appealling "San Francisco HIV/AIDS Program" and "Bay Area Youth Prevention [sic] Network", or the irreplaceable 'PG&E Hunters Point Wastewater Improvement Project', or......... ah -- the EPA!

    And that was all in one day!

    This country's annual Federal budget is now approaching $1,000,000,000,000 (that's TRILLION) spent every year on government welfare assistance, social security, medicai/re/d, and various other low income socialized entitlement programs. With people like NANCY PELOSI driving cash into these fiduciary BLACK HOLES, It's no wonder then why there's nothing left for pioneering research on the real ones, leading to discoveries which boggle and amaze us all.

    Really, with all they've promised, it's easy to see why it's no longer enough for these pathetic politicians to just take money from the rich and give to the poor. They need MORE! So they take money from science and technology, give it to bums and meth heads, and tell the rest of us to pay up and screw off. Pffft. What ever happened to Democrats like JFK, who actually cared about science? Pioneering is the American spirit, this is WHAT WE DO.

    Hate him all you want, but GW Bush has been boosting NASA spending every year he's been in office, reversing an inflation-adjusted decline during the Clinton years. We'll see how long that lasts after urban Americans vote the Clinton's back into office in '08.
    • Dougman82, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3You, sir, are my hero.
    • DoTheFandango, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Oh damn, and I thought all this time that I gave a *****.
    • hysterix, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Why did I read all of that you Neo-Con?
      • Tabris, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Because being a Republican doesn't automatically make him a neo-con? There IS a difference, and you can not like the president but like a couple things that he's done. Increasing NASA spending is a good thing, as was not renewing the assault weapons ban thing. Besides that, there are plenty of things about him I don't like, but either way liking a couple things doesn't make you a "neo-con", and being republican used to equate with being conservative in the sense that the federal government should keep a minimal role, quite the opposite of what this administration is doing.

        I know many republicans that have no idea what to do since both Dems and Repubs seem intent on expanding the power of the federal government. I feel a truly conservative mindset is "Do what you want as long as my taxes aren't paying for it", including legalization of marijuana, gay marriage, less gun control, private social security, etc. Just because the person doesn't agree with or approve of it, doesn't mean he thinks everyone else should be barred from doing it.

        I'm socially liberal and want a smaller federal government, and I have no idea who to vote for come 08 because I'm not to the point of being libertarian and wanting all social programs and NASA eliminated, don't agree with the more recent Democratic ideals of being PC and not offending anyone, or with the Republicans trying to legislate morality.
    • Frosty122, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0way to make this political!
  • imborden, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1If there's one way to go, it's through a black hole.
  • Velnich, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I really wanted the facility to be called Black Mesa.
    • Dougman82, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Haha, you just made me smile... and want to go kill some aliens with a crowbar again...
  • biggyfred, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I thought I read somewhere that the CERN project in some form was (or possibly in its entirety?) already potentially obsolete given scientific insights made through other methods. Anyone else know anything about that?

    And please, for the love of a merciful god, can we not talk about American politics for just one half of one comment section?
    • Stratochief66, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Perhaps some things that CERN was originally slated to do have been done in other ways, it did take a very long time to complete. There is however no replacement for a big machine like this for finding/ not finding the Higgs Boson once and for all.
  • schroeder, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5"The individual beam lines will keep the racing particle streams separated—except at four points around the ring where physicists will deliberately allow the streams to cross."

    Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
    Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
    Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
    Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
    Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.... Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
    Dr. Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal!
    Dr. Peter Venkman: That's bad. Okay. All right, important safety tip, thanks Egon.
  • Shadowhawk109, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1I just hope they don't find a murdered scientist and find themselves missing some antimatter.

    Say what you will about The Da Vinci Code, but I liked Angels & Demons.
  • Lobster, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1Those crazy scientists! Next they will try putting antimatter in a box . . .
    http://tmxxine.com/Wikka/wikka.php?wakka=HomePage
  • PieterOpie, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1The biggest machine on earth to look for the smallest particles in existence. Amazing. Even if they do find their elusive little speck of nothingness I doubt it will help solve the whole puzzle of "what are we made of" and so forth. There will be more and more smaller things and it will seem we are starting on a new smaller level with smaller and weirder particles. I imagine it is like the universe in that it goes on forever. Perhaps some new nifty gadgets will come out of all this so that the whole drama wasn't for nothing. I hope that thing is well above sea level or that too will be lost in a few years. We've come so far and yet...... Pity. We might have travelled to the stars had we shown a bit of sense. We as beings are pretty smart and so stupid all at the same time. After we're gone perhaps the rats will do better......
    • eigenvalue, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0"Perhaps some new nifty gadgets will come out of all this so that the whole drama wasn't for nothing."
      I am sure you are not a scientist, otherwise you would have never made that comment! We don't do science to get nifty gadgets out of it. We do science to understand the fundamental structure of the universe. So what if we if we don't manage to solve the "the whole puzzle" with this experiment (and we most likely won't, theoretical physics is a bit ahead of this experiment), it will bring us closer. This is what science is about.
  • caponumen, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1Just before the first A BOMB was exploded one of the design team physicists predicted the high temperates would ignite the nitrogen in the atmosphere and burn the entire earth.
    Naturally this didn't make any impact on the decision to proceed.

    The danger of producing a black hole seems a little more serious but this possibility is being ignored as well.
    Is this a case for a preemptive attack to prevent this happening?
    I think many would say it is....
  • hush79, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2More energetic collisions have been occurring for millions of years by cosmic rays hitting the earths atmosphere. If the Large Hadron Collider at CERN can create mini-blackholes, then they have already been created (and decaying naturally) in the earths atmosphere already. The earth is still here. apparently.
  • zeroroth, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2All signs point to imminent destruction:

    That ghostbusters quote.

    "In a nutshell, the Higgs field is what makes some particles (like protons and neutrons) relatively heavy, others (like electrons) subatomic lightweights, and still others (like photons) utterly massless. If photons weren’t so light, you’d be shredded by a photon hailstorm every time you lazed under a sunbeam. Then again, if protons and neutrons weren’t so heavy, you wouldn’t be there to sunbathe anyway: Without mass and its affinity for gravity, there’d be no galaxies, no stars, no us."
    Marty: This is heavy, Doc.
    Doc Brown: There's that word again, 'heavy'. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?
    Marty: What?

    "The collisions at LHC could spray out strange new kinds of matter, unfurl hidden dimensions of space, even generate tiny glowing reenactments of the birth of the universe."
    Doc Brown: Obviously the time continuum has been disrupted, creating a new temporal event sequence resulting in this alternate reality.
    Marty: English, Doc!
    Doc Brown: Here. Here, let me demonstrate. Let's say that this line represents time. Here's the present 1985, the future and the past. Obviously, somewhere in the past the timeline skewed down into this tangent creating an alternate 1985. Alternate to you, me, and Einstein, but reality for everyone else.

    "Behind protective concrete, banks of computers are ready to do the initial sifting work. After that, the data will pass up to the computing center, where the real analysis will begin. Even there, data from the two experiments will be kept separate, with security systems in place to prevent peeping."
    Dave: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
    HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
    Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
    HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
    Dave: What's the problem?
    HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
    Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?
    HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.


    I'm scared.
  • mike302, on 10/10/2007, -2/+0Its going to be one of those things where one guy says: "My machine can move faster than yours... Here" he flips the switch and nothing appears to happen at all, and the other guy says "What? It didn't work", and the first guy says, "Yes it did!"... Kinda like kids do as a stupid joke..... An $8 billion stupid joke :D
  • trashken, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1That's the set for "Half Life: The Movie" isn't it ?
  • StormTrooperVII, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2FTA: “This whole complex detector probably only costs the same as one super next-generation bomber to drop bombs better,”

    Goddamn, I knew the U.S. taxpayer was getting ripped off with all the military spending, but... DAMN
  • o0joshua0o, on 10/10/2007, -2/+2Guys, I'm from the future. It's VERY IMPORTANT that the LHC doesn't get turned on at the end of 2007.
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