The Large Hadron Collider has become fodder for tons of viral videos. Some are hilarious, others are informative, and the best are somewhere in between. Here are our favorites:
8. CERN Explained in 3 Minutes
A great introduction to the whole European Center for Nuclear Research, not just its highest profile project.
Tags: Large Hadron Collider, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Technology
The giant Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most expensive scientific experiment, will be shut down for at least two months, scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva said today.
The shutdown casts into doubt the hopes of CERN physicists to achieve high-energy collisions of protons in the machine before the end of the year. “It’s too early to say whether we’ll still be having collisions this year,” James Gillies, head of communications for CERN, said in an e-mail message. The laboratory shuts down to save money on electricity during the winter.
A gala inauguration party scheduled for Oct. 21 will still take place, Dr. Gillies said.
The collider is designed to accelerate the subatomic particles known as protons to energies of 7 trillion electron volts, far surpassing any other accelerator on Earth, and bang them together in search of new particles and forces.
Tags: CERN, Large Hadron Collider, particles, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Technology
Hackers have broken into one of the computer networks of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
A group calling itself the Greek Security Team left a rogue webpage describing the technicians responsible for computer security at the giant atom smasher as “schoolkids” - but reassuring scientists that they did not want to disrupt the experiment.
The hackers gained access to a website open to other scientists on Wednesday as the LHC passed its first test, sending its protons off on their dizzying journey through time and space, close to the speed of light.
Tags: CERN, Hacker, Large Hadron Collider, particles, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Scientists, Technology
GENEVA (Reuters) - International scientists celebrated the successful start of a huge particle-smashing machine on Wednesday which aims to simulate the conditions of the “Big Bang” that created the universe.
Experiments using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the biggest and most complex machine ever made, could revamp modern physics and unlock secrets about the universe and its origins.
The project has had to work hard to deny suggestions by some critics that the experiment could create tiny black holes of intense gravity that could suck in the whole planet.
Such fears spurred huge public interest in advanced physics ahead of the start up of the 10 billion Swiss franc ($9 billion) machine, which proceeded smoothly on Wednesday morning.
Tags: Big Bang, CERN, Higgs Boson, Large Hadron Collider, particles, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Technology
ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2008) - Stained glass windows that are painted with gold purify the air when they are lit up by sunlight, a team of Queensland University of Technology experts have discovered.
Associate Professor Zhu Huai Yong, from QUT’s School of Physical and Chemical Sciences said that glaziers in medieval forges were the first nanotechnologists who produced colours with gold nanoparticles of different sizes.
Tags: Gold, Health, nanoparticle, nanotechnology, particles, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Technology
Rappin’ about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider!
Source: YouTube
Tags: CERN, Large Hadron Collider, Music, particles, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Technology
Scientists working on the world’s biggest machine are being besieged by phone calls and emails from people who fear the world will end next Wednesday, when the gigantic atom smasher starts up.
The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, where particles will begin to circulate around its 17 mile circumference tunnel next week, will recreate energies not seen since the universe was very young, when particles smash together at near the speed of light.
Hadron Collider: The final pieces slot into place
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 t—.”
The head of public relations, James Gillies, says he gets tearful phone calls, pleading for the £4.5 billion machine to stop.
Tags: black hole, CERN, Higgs Boson, Large Hadron Collider, particles, Peter Higgs, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Technology
The world’s biggest and most expensive scientific experiment has been hit by a last minute legal challenge, amid claims that the research could bring about the end of the world.
Opponents fear the machine may create a mini-black hole that could tear the earth apart Photo: PA
Critics of the Large Hadron Collider - a £4.4 billion machine due to be switched on in ten days time - have lodged a lawsuit at the European Court for Human Rights against the 20 countries, including the UK, that fund the project.
Tags: CERN, Government, Hadron Collider, human rights, Large Hadron Collider, Law, particles, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Technology, U.K., U.S.
Peter Higgs remembers the day everything suddenly began to make sense. “It was July 16, 1964, when some new research papers arrived. I looked at one, realised what it meant and then jumped up and shouted out loud: ‘Oh shit’.”
For years his colleagues had been working on theories about the building blocks of the universe - and Higgs had disagreed with them all. The trouble was, he’d had no better suggestions.
Now he had an idea and spent the weekend mulling it over. “When I came back to work on Monday, I sat down and wrote a new paper as fast as I could,” he recalled in an interview last week.
Tags: breast cancer, CERN, Higgs Boson, Large Hadron Collider, Nobel, particles, Peter Higgs, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Scientists, Technology, universe
Two physicists have boldly gone where no reputable scientists should go and devised a new scheme to travel faster than the speed of light.
The advance could mean that Star Trek fantasies of interstellar civilisations and voyages powered by warp drive are now no longer the exclusive domain of science fiction writers.
The US Starship Enterprise from the original Star Trek series
In the long running television series created by Gene Roddenberry, the warp drive was invented by Zefram Cochrane, who began his epic project in 2053 in Bozeman, Montana.
Now Dr Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Richard Obousy have come up with a new twist on an existing idea to produce a warp drive that they believe can travel faster than the speed of light, without breaking the laws of physics.
Tags: Albert Einstein, physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Scientists, space, speed, Star Trek, Technology
