Thread: LHC May Be Colliding Particle Beams In a Week

Quote: Originally Posted by Spewn Antimatter is created naturally, it just doesn't last for very long. Okay, okay, you're right. Antimatter occurs naturally. But in the case of the LHC, we created it, so it is manmade.

I did want to commend the Europeans on this one though....I can barely find a government body here in America that can make an effecient 18 mile road....let alone a fuggin 18 mile long cosmic death ray cannon.

Quote: Originally Posted by HOCP4ME Okay, okay, you're right. Antimatter occurs naturally. But in the case of the LHC, we created it, so it is manmade. you could easily argue that your still not making it but rather pulling it from the quantum vacuum. in other words your actually "buying" them and not creating them at all for they were already there, you just set their balance sheets into the black

Quote: Originally Posted by riot8ap The second paragraph makes me wonder why this experiment won't result in an atomic bomb? It would be like throwing a piece of bird seed at a snowy mountainside and expecting it to turn into a killer snowball as it rolls down the side of the mountain. That kinda thing would work well if this was the Looney Tunes universe, but it's not

Quote: Originally Posted by riot8ap The second paragraph makes me wonder why this experiment won't result in an atomic bomb? if the LHC would've been online "producing" antimatter since the beginning of the universe, it wouldn't have made enough antimatter to light a match

Quote: Originally Posted by Righty Yeh, aliens are keeping this from happening, they know what happens. It's possibly being stopped by its future. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/sc...html?_r=1&8dpc

Quote: Originally Posted by HOCP4ME Okay, okay, you're right. Antimatter occurs naturally. But in the case of the LHC, we created it, so it is manmade. We grow trees, are trees man made? We make oxygen, is oxygen man made?

What do they hope to gain from colliding beams?

When the beams collide individual particles collide. When they do so at such energies they decompose into smaller, much less stable particles. Scientists basically analyze the cloud of particles that form from the decomposed protons to see what they can find; in this case, they're trying to look for the Higgs Boson, which is supposed to supply particles with their mass.

Good news! I think this Dresen Codak comic is pertinent. http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/c...ience-fiction/