back to article LHC boffins crank beams to 3.5 TeV redline

Big news from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) overnight. The titanic proton-punisher has once again smashed all records to achieve the most powerful particle beams ever generated by the human race, at energies of 3.5 Tera-electron-volts - the maximum redline power at which the mighty machine can currently be safely run. Slide …

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  1. WhatDoesThisDo

    Colliding beams with block not the same as colliding beams

    The beam dumps did not cause 3.5 TeV collisions I'm afraid.

    If you have two particles with the same energy (say, 3.5 TeV) and they collide head on, the energy in the centre of mass frame (the frame where reactions happen in this case, but that's a bit crude) is just the energy doubled i.e. 3.5 + 3.5 = 7 TeV

    But if you collide a beam at high energy with stationary particles (the 3.5 TeV per proton beam hitting the graphite beam dump), the energy of possible interactions is much less (\sqrt{2*11.19 GeV * 3.5 TeV} = 280 GeV), where 11.19 GeV is the mass-energy of a carbon atom.

    More details here:

    http://www-bd.fnal.gov/public/relativity.html

  2. BlueGreen

    @Marvin the Martian

    With you on that, it doesn't seem right. There's too much kinetic energy as it's described, aircraft carrier and that - hang on just remembered - akon/macron? It would be just like Lewis to pull a fast one.

    Perhaps someone here can be arsed do the calculations for me.

    1. Lewis Page 1

      Just like Lewis to pull a fast one

      FFS - click on the link in the article before hitting comment. I didn't come up with the aircraft carrier numbers, it was CERN.

      Or just pop off and shout at the bins again, whatever

      1. BlueGreen

        that was meant as a compliment

        at what I thought was a very neat piece of misdirection. Aircraft carrier at speed sounded impossible - unless they're the mostly helium, of course. Very much along the lines of your fat birds article or the 'all nine mice were dead' which caught me out. My apologies for it coming across wrong, but not an insult, ok?

        So anyway I followed the link and checked their calcs and they add up AFAICT but I still have trouble believing them, so here's one for you. They say that the energy is also equivalent also to 77 Kg of TNT. Does it sound credible that 77Kg of TNT could have enough energy to get a mass of 20 million Kg (their aircraft carrier weight) moving from zero to 6 metres/second, about 13.5 miles/hour? I'm having trouble with that.

        1. Keith Oldham

          Re : that was meant as a compliment

          At ~4 moles/kg the energy from 77kg TNT will be ~350 MJ which fits with the kinetic energy for the carrier and the LHC beam energy at 7TeV

      2. kungfuguy181

        CERN has the corrct info in its glossary ... the navy ship example is not correct

        their math is wrong. the official CERN page says that 1 TeV is equal to the enegry of a flying mosquito!

        http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/Science/Glossary-en.php#E

        Not even close to a navy ship. The writer didnt check his reference...

        the register uses this source here: http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/beam.htm

        so if 1 TeV is a mosquito and 7 Tev is a navy ship something is very wrong...

        but the navy ship example is not correct in my calculation...

        so a ship of same mass traveling at 12 knots ...or velocity = 6.0166435 m/s (meters/second)

        we find the energy of the navy ship at 12 knots:

        E = (1/2) m * v^2 M is mass of ship, and v is velocity or speed...

        E = .5 * (2x10^7 kg ) * (6.0166 m/s )^2

        = 3.62x10^8 Joules or 362,000,000 Joules

        since 1eV = 1.6x10-19 J

        we convert Joules to eV...

        3.62x10^8 J / (1.6x10-19 eV/J) = 2.2596754 x 10^+27 eV

        then convert eV to TeV for comparison...

        = 2.2596754 x10^15 TeV

        1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

          re: CERN has the corrct info in its glossary ... the navy ship example is not correct

          That's for a single particle; there are a lot of 3.5TeV particles circulating that need to be dumped.

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  4. JeffyPooh
    Thumb Up

    Don't ignore Paul 4 !!!!

    Follow his link to the Telegraph typo:

    "Large Hardon Collider"

  5. Badbob
    Happy

    HMS Invincible = Bellylaugh

    I have to admit, I had a good chuckle at the idea of the HMS Invincible being called into existence at the LHC, and while being unable to understand what it was doing there, went steaming straight into the magnets, before vanishing again and re-materialising as a faulty power coupler. (ala Hitchhikers Guide)

  6. Andus McCoatover

    0.98 TeV?

    Europe's got something bigger than the USA? (Not counting Britain's Dear Leader's negative poll rating, natch). Uskomatonta!

    Having said that, the Human Race is sooo bizzarre. The LHC exists, working - major achievement, and at the same time the ISS flies over places there they're stoning 14-year old girls to death for being raped and getting pregnant, against their will...

    In a thousand years time, we'll be regarded as the Neanderthals. If we haven't blown themselves to bits in the meantime....Might be better for the universe if we did.

  7. Ian Michael Gumby
    Alien

    Why do they just dump it in to a lump of graphite?

    I mean, heck, what would happen if they focused the beams a little and were able to point them at the moon? (In a controlled fashion of course.)

    Wouldn't it be cool if they could actually make a large enough 'smiley' face to brighten up everyone's life when there's a full moon?

    Or should they just dump it out in to space so it acts like a very large galactic flare gun?

  8. Nater
    Grenade

    International Space Station

    Everytime I see the International Space Station I remember the SSC. The Superconducting Super Colider. The US was supposed to build this beast, nearly three times as powerful as the LHC and it would have been done by now.

    The difference between the SSC and the ISS? The later was actually for science.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Down

      Freudian Slip?

      I think you mean 'latter' Big Brain.

      Or did you mean Latte?

  9. b166er

    Ahh buckle this

    BlueGreen and Marvin the Martian.

    That 750 tonnes of concrete is encased in heavy steel and secured within a rather large boulder, though!

  10. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Giant Pinball Machine?

    I bet that sucker is hard to tilt.

  11. gimbal
    Black Helicopters

    (wow)

    :sob-sob mushy etc:

    That's beautiful

    So how soon before they can mount it on a C-130? (KIDDING, people! Please...)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Pffftt How about something for the plebs

    Sending particles around a race track at insane amounts of energy nahh.

    Throwing around aircraft carriers, now that's something id pay to watch. Mind you you'd need to have Clarkson as the commentator.

    Anonymous, yes I actually enjoy Jeremy Clarkson's pap.

  13. Adrian Esdaile
    Thumb Up

    There is a theory...

    ...which states that if we destroy the Universe in a LHC-induced micro-black-hole-stranglet-vacuum cataclysm it will instantly be replaced by something even more bizzarely inexplicable.

    There is also a theory which states that THIS HAS ALREADY HAPPENED!

    1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
      Alien

      do you work as an editor for

      the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

  14. kungfuguy181

    7 TeV not going to budge a navy carrier

    the register uses this source here: http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/beam.htm

    but it is not correct in my calculation...

    so a ship of same mass traveling at 12 knots ...or velocity = 6.0166435 m/s (meters/second)

    we find the energy of the navy ship at 12 knots:

    E = (1/2) m * v^2 M is mass of ship, and v is velocity or speed...

    E = .5 * (2x10^7 kg ) * (6.0166 m/s )^2

    = 3.62x10^8 Joules or 362,000,000 Joules

    since 1eV = 1.6x10-19 J

    we convert Joules to eV...

    3.62x10^8 J / (1.6x10-19 eV/J) = 2.2596754 x 10^+27 eV

    then convert eV to TeV for comparison...

    = 2.2596754 x10^15 TeV

    = 2,259,675,400,000,000 TeV or read as 2.259 thousand trillion TeV !!!!!

    !!!!! wow !!! a lot more energy than the Large Hadron Collider could ever produce!!!

    7 TeV would hardly be enough energy to even budge a ship !

    1. Keith Oldham

      Re : 7 TeV not going to budge a navy carrier

      Indeed one proton with an energy of 7TeV would not move much

      362 MJ is the BEAM energy ( according to CERN) at 7TeV which fits with the energy of the ship

      But the beam has 2088 bunches of protons, each bunch consisting of 1.15E11 protons - each PROTON has 7TeV

    2. Drat

      More than one particle in the beam...

      7 TeV is the energy per particle. Now multiply that by the number of particles per bunch (1.15x10^11), and the number of bunches per beam (2808) and you get 2.26x10^15

      Those figures for number of particles were just from googling so might be different now, but you get the picture.

    3. Christopher Key.

      Beams of particles

      The wikipedia article refers to beams containing 2808 bunches of 1.15e11 protons each, all of which need to be dumped simultaneously. Including this and counting both beams, the energies match reasonably closely.

  15. Oliver 4

    So.. what your saying...

    ...is that HMS invincible is powered by 7 mosquitoes?

    Way to spend that defence budget lads!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Boffin

      Yes but..

      they are applied in 2808 bunches of 1.15e11 Mosquito lumps.

  16. Ken 16 Silver badge
    Coat

    Graphite Core?

    Must get one of those the next time I need to take a dangerous dump!

    I've a matchbox in my coat, I'll try lighting one...

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    LHC--Do not cross the streams!

    Unless Gozur the Destructor needs some butt kickin'....

  18. Neil Woolford
    Coat

    Dr Fronkensteen...

    Frau Bluecher!

    What hump?

    Therewoolf...

    See Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" it that means nothing to you.

    Watch it again if it does!

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