Robby
02-25-2008, 07:53 AM
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0802/atlas_cern.jpg (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0802/atlas_cern_big.jpg)
Dawn of the Large Hadron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadron) Collider
Credit & Copyright (http://cern-copyright.web.cern.ch/cern-copyright/): Maximilien Brice, CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html)
Explanation: Why do objects have mass? To help find out, Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe)'s CERN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN) has built the Large Hadron Collider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider) (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator) yet created by humans (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html). This May, the LHC (http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/) is scheduled to start smashing protons into each other with unprecedented impact speeds. The LHC (http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/) will explore the leading explanation that mass arises from ordinary particles slogging through an otherwise invisible but pervasive field (http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/Leib-Clk/higgs.html) of virtual (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/virtual_particles.html) Higgs particles. Were high energy colliding particles to create real Higgs bosons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson), the Higgs mechanism (http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~djm/higgsa.html) for mass creation may be bolstered. LHC will also look for micro black holes (http://www.thekroneexperiment.com/), magnetic monopoles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole), and explore the possibility that every type of fundamental particle (http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/VVC/theory/fundamental.html) we know about has a nearly invisible supersymmetric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersymmetry) counterpart. The LHC@Home (http://athome.web.cern.ch/athome/) project will allow anyone with a home computer to help LHC scientists (http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/Organization.htm) search archived LHC data for these strange beasts. Pictured above (http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/910381), a person stands in front of the huge ATLAS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATLAS) detector, one of six detectors being attached to the LHC (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/14/070514fa_fact_kolbert).
(Via NASA (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080225.html))
Dawn of the Large Hadron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadron) Collider
Credit & Copyright (http://cern-copyright.web.cern.ch/cern-copyright/): Maximilien Brice, CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html)
Explanation: Why do objects have mass? To help find out, Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe)'s CERN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN) has built the Large Hadron Collider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider) (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_accelerator) yet created by humans (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html). This May, the LHC (http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/) is scheduled to start smashing protons into each other with unprecedented impact speeds. The LHC (http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/) will explore the leading explanation that mass arises from ordinary particles slogging through an otherwise invisible but pervasive field (http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/Leib-Clk/higgs.html) of virtual (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/virtual_particles.html) Higgs particles. Were high energy colliding particles to create real Higgs bosons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson), the Higgs mechanism (http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~djm/higgsa.html) for mass creation may be bolstered. LHC will also look for micro black holes (http://www.thekroneexperiment.com/), magnetic monopoles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_monopole), and explore the possibility that every type of fundamental particle (http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/VVC/theory/fundamental.html) we know about has a nearly invisible supersymmetric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersymmetry) counterpart. The LHC@Home (http://athome.web.cern.ch/athome/) project will allow anyone with a home computer to help LHC scientists (http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/Organization.htm) search archived LHC data for these strange beasts. Pictured above (http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/910381), a person stands in front of the huge ATLAS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATLAS) detector, one of six detectors being attached to the LHC (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/14/070514fa_fact_kolbert).
(Via NASA (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080225.html))