
What will be the result of the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider?
Suspend date reached
Background:>
The Large Hadron collider (www.lhc.co.uk) was finally completed at CERN's base in Geneva in summer 2008. It is designed to consume massive amounts of energy throwing particles around a tunnel at massive speeds. (more info on CERN website)
The question is: What will happen when the "first beams are injected" AND the "first collisions" are triggered (regardless the suspend date of the question).
The original schedule called for this to occur in the middle of August:
"The cool-down schedule, which I am confident we can keep, foresees the entire LHC being cold by the middle of June, allowing the first beams to be injected soon after. First collisions will follow two months later."
(CERN Journal)
Legal issues (see http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/m4944/ and http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/m5869/) were overcome on schedule, but a technical glitch during the final stages of the cool-down phase caused damage to the tunnel. Because of the necessity to reheat the tunnel to less inhuman temperatures to repair this, followed by a re-cooling back down to almost absolute zero, this process is expected to take a number of months.
Sadly energy costs in the make atom-smashing on this scale prohibitively expensive in the dead of winter, so the first collisions are now expected in Spring 2009 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7632408.stm)
Options are similar to the original question
Settlement details:As reported on bbc.co.uk or other respectable news source.
| "No Damage" (or similar) explicitly reported |
| |||
| "Small accident" damage to LHC and/or people |
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| "Disaster" with 10 or more fatalities |
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| Just Geneva destroyed |
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| Just Switzerland destroyed |
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| Unexpected consequences result in the end of life |
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| Results reported without referring to damage |
|
- Activity: H$212,029 |
- Predictions: 718 |
Comments: 124
Suspend date: Fri 30th Oct 11:59pm PST
Initial likelihoods: "No Damage" (or similar) explicitly reported: 50%, "Small accident" damage to LHC and/or people: 6%, "Disaster" with 10 or more fatalities: 5%, Just Geneva destroyed: 4%, Just Switzerland destroyed: 1%, Unexpected consequences result in the end of life: 3%, Results reported without referring to damage: 31%
Action history:
http://my.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20080910/48c74640_3ca6_1552620080910140316668
first article in your source...
So, we will have to wait a little longer for high energy collisions to occur before we settle this question
(Note: This is a different accident from the replacement of an overheated transformer earlier in the week.)
Anyway, this should settle the question as "small accident".
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26802846/
Repairs A Quench
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7626944.stm
See comments 47 and 53 for clarification of market as it currently stands
Suspend date: Fri 30th Oct 11:59pm PST details
Predictions (718)
Comments (124)
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http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2008/0803006/0803006_01/0803006_01-A4-at-144-dpi.jpg
does that mean all life? might be hard to collect in that case.
* all life on earth or all life at all everywhere even http://www.hubdub.com/e/Market/m5358/
kruijs, are you trying to give the BBC preference between these two, overlapping, options:
1) "No Damage" (or similar) explicitly reported
2) Results reported without referring to damage
I could definitely see some media sources reporting option 1 and others option 2. If the BBC holds trump it's probably okay, although I suppose different articles on bbc.co.uk could report it differently as well.
Regards,
Ryan
Hubdub Category Editor
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/article?issue=32/2008&name=CERNBulletin&category=News%20Articles&number=1&ln=en
LHC Cooldown Status
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/
... Temperatures between 1.7 and 1.9 K, wow, ...
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gBOsea79dkKBPYuLx_bERD8XsLmQ
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/08/the_large_hadron_collider.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/09/05/scilhc105.xml
Such is the angst that the American Nobel prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has even had death threats, said Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University, adding: "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twat."
You're right, this has been fun to follow.
Hopefully the switch-on of the LHC will yield a whole bunch of new questions :-)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/09/08/scicern108.xml
This image will probably not be showing for long - (seen 9-10-08)
http://www.google.com/
So, we will have to wait a little longer for high energy collisions to occur before we settle this question
http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/girl-kills-herself-over-big-bang-fears/2008/09/12/1220857778976.html
How sad that is.
In related news:
Hadron Collider halted for months
Part of the giant physics experiment was turned off for the weekend while engineers probed a magnet failure.
A Cern spokesman said damage to the Ł3.6bn ($6.6bn) particle accelerator was worse than anticipated.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7626944.stm
Quote from question background:
"The question is: What will happen when the "first beams are injected" AND the "first collisions" are triggered (regardless the suspend date of the question). "
Are you kidding me? Your saying that this seems absurdly dumb? Have you even looked at your name?
@all
"Small accident" damage to LHG and/or people" I think i may have just settled this. I tripped and scraped my ankle when i heard about this. There. Damage to "people"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26802846/
- What will happen when the "first beams are injected" -
- AND the "first collisions" are triggered.
- Regardless the suspend date.
It is quoted directly from the background of the question.
http://news.google.com/news?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=lHC&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1248093659&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=4&ct=more-results&cd=1
This question will not settle until an article is produced indicating that at least an attempt to collide particles has occurred.
But the damage was not result of the experiments. And the results of the experiments are topic of this question - not just the machine turned on. (OK, the title indicates it does, but it was never meant so: Please read question background)
The current headlines exactly indicate what is intended by this question: "Large Hadron Collider won't end world for months" (http://www.itexaminer.com/large-hadron-collider-wont-end-world-for-months.aspx) "Quest for 'Big Bang' delayed by fault in Hadron Collider" (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/quest-for-big-bang-delayed-by-fault-in-hadron-collider-936314.html)
Nice to know we all have a few more months to live...
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/top-5-large-had.html
Can you provide an article indicating that they have tried to collide particles yet. The fact is they have only shot particles in one direction thus far.
and this will be against my prediction the answer is obviously in the question
Small accident" damage to LHG and/or people and that is what happened
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR09.08E.html /
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR09.08E.html /
Commisioning means: Performing the necessary adjustments, tests and inspection to ensure plant is in full working order to specified requirements before the plant is used.
The question as Krujis asked it is: What will happen when the beams are injected and particle collision is triggered.
The article you yourself provide indicates that these things have not happened yet.
The recent damage means that they will not happen until the repairs are made.
The outcome of this question can only be determined after beams are injected AND particle collision is triggered. Any damage sustained is irrelevant other than the fact it will delay beams being injected and particle collision being triggered which consequently will delay settlement.
@ Curios: This is not something I am making up. This is what the question asks. If you read the previous 20 to 25 comments you will see that I have already explained this to someone else who didn't understand the background information.
Do Not think that the damage sustained in the article you mention (http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2008/PR09.08E.html /) will determine the out come of: "Small accident" damage to LHG and/or people" because the question does not ask what will happen during commissioning.
If the question was referring to events during the commissioning then this question would have already settled.
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/News.htmm
Incident in LHC sector 34
Geneva, 20 September 2008. During commissioning (without beam) of the final LHC sector (sector 34) at high current for operation at 5 TeV, an incident occurred at mid-day on Friday 19 September resulting in a large helium leak into the tunnel. Preliminary investigations indicate that the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure. CERN ’s strict safety regulations ensured that at no time was there any risk to people.
A full investigation is underway, but it is already clear that the sector will have to be warmed up for repairs to take place. This implies a minimum of two months down time for LHC operation. For the same fault, not uncommon in a normally conducting machine, the repair time would be a matter of days.
Further details will be made available as soon as they are known.
Don't try to use your arguments if you lose your H$ because it has been clearly explained to you.
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080922/full/455436a.html?s=news_rss
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7632408.stm
Please not comment 70 and the headline of the article mentioned in it.
http://arxivblog.com/?p=645
please, please read the background of the question carefully. you even might consider reading linked articles to really understand what these citations refer to ("first beams are injected", "first collisions"). you will recognize that the question just doesn't settle yet. the question will not change just because you repeat your questions. doing so, only shows that you did not fully read (or understood) the question background.
@anyone else: DFTT
"The random nature of quantum physics means that there is always a minuscule, but nonzero, chance of anything occurring, including that the new collider could spit out man-eating dragons."
Thats what I was hoping for...if there's a small non-zero chance of an infinite number of possibilities surely something interesting will pop out once they finally get it working
Right now they're heating up their big broken machine, so people can go and find out exactly what went wrong. It's not due to be restarted again until next spring.
dragon, please read the comments above.
the machine has been turned on - you are right - but that alone does not suffice not settle this question.
To avoid a repeat of that, I'd suggest we do some clarification before first collisions occur:
- What "respectble news sources", besides bbc.co.uk, will be accepted? How about the CERN web site "News" page - http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/News.htm ?
- How long do we wait, if we have to distinguish between "No Damage (or similar) explicitly reported" and "Results reported without referring to damage"? [I'd say two weeks from the moment of first collisions, so newspaper weekend Science Section and weekly news magazine articles have a chance to get published.]
- What will count as "(or similar)"? "The LHC performed flawlessly"? "Collisions happen, Earth still here"?
Finally - why is "Results reported without referring to damage" still at 49%? Either there'll be some damage - which will certainly be reported - or there won't be - in which case some reporter will almost certainly contrast that with the damage in July. So what are half the people here expecting to happen, such that "without referring to damage" has such a large chance of success? Must be something I'm missing, so someone will likely be objecting to how this gets settled, if no damage occurs.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,570487,00.html
“A large black hole appeared in the main intersection of one of Queensland's major regional cities today.” - Australian Associated Press 3/25/2009
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25240245-29277,00.html
even google knows: http://www.google.ch/search?q=answer+to+life%2C+the+universe+and+everything
http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR09.09E.html.
"The biggest, most expensive physics machine in the world is riddled with thousands of bad electrical connections."
"Many of the magnets meant to whiz high-energy subatomic particles around a 17-mile underground racetrack have mysteriously lost their ability to operate at high energies."
Can you say "ZZZAAAAAPPPP!!!" ?
If it just breaks again than, yes, it settles "Small accident" (as long it is reported, or there were still people to report).
EVENTUALLY it WILL break down again, but I think the spirit of the question is that the damage be related to operations around the time of first collisions. E.g. minor damage might come during preparation for beam turn-on (but it's minor and they manage get first collisions anyhow), or damage might happen during shut-down (which I'd guess isn't like flipping off a light switch) and they'll have to fix it before resuming operations.
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/article?name=CERNBulletin&issue=39/2009&number=3&category=News%20Articles&ln=en
(The hydrogen bomb was species IQ test #1. I suppose there may have been others, but I'll leave finding them to those who love to prove others wrong...)
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/10/is-a-time-travelling-higgs-sab.html
Bizzare hypothesis from two respected scientists (or at least formerly respected).
Could the Large Hadron Collider be sabotaging itself from the future, as some physicists say
Explosions, scientists arrested for alleged terrorism, mysterious breakdowns — recently Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has begun to look like the world’s most ill-fated experiment.
Is it really nothing more than bad luck or is there something weirder at work? Such speculation generally belongs to the lunatic fringe, but serious scientists have begun to suggest that the frequency of Cern’s accidents and problems is far more than a coincidence.
The LHC, they suggest, may be sabotaging itself from the future — twisting time to generate a series of scientific setbacks that will prevent the machine fulfilling its destiny.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6879293.ece
But maybe not... Maybe creating a Higgs particle collapses any universe in which it was successfully created all into the Big Bang. So only the tiny fraction in which for any reason it does not get created, continue to exist. So from our perspective (as the retroactive survivors), it looks completely like perfectly consistent bad luck of a totally random nature. Sort of a reverse-temporal anthropic principle on infinite steroids.
"Go ahead - try to create a Higgs. But you should ask yourself - do you feel lucky, Punk? Really, really, infinitely lucky?"
"What's wrong, Obi-Wan?" "A great disturbance in the Force. It was like six billion times almost 100% of infinity voices crying out in unison, then suddenly silenced."
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/10/28/particles-injected-into-large-hadron-collider/
They reported all settings and parameters showed a perfect functioning of the machine. In the coming weeks, physicists hope to have the first circulating beam.
... no collisions yet ...
stay tuned !
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