Right Thinking From The Left Coast
"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Atom Smash
by Lee

This story is super cool.

The first of some 5,000 magnets that will bend particles at near light-speed around a huge tunnel under Switzerland has been lowered into place.

It is part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a powerful machine being built in the 27km-long accelerator facility at the famous Cern lab, near Geneva.

The LHC is designed to probe beyond our current understanding of physics.

The giant superconducting dipole magnet was lowered 50m down a special shaft at 1300 GMT on Monday.

Delivery of the 15m-long, 35-tonne structure to its final location marks the beginning of LHC installation.

The LHC will recreate the searing-hot conditions that existed just fractions of a second after the Big Bang.

Scientists hope this will enable them to see new physics, and discover the sought-after Higgs boson, or “God particle”, which explains why matter has mass.

Researchers may even find new dimensions and generate mini-black holes.

I remember years ago they were building one of these things in Texas, and they stopped it in the middle of construction.  Dumbasses.  If there is one area that the US should truly lead the world it’s in research.

Posted by Lee on 03/08/05 at 03:12 AM in Science and Technology  • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink • Discuss this in the forums
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