Geezer

See? All this money spent on the LHC, possibly man's finest scientific hour, and that post proves we should be spending the money on education and literacy!

I think our education system has disappeared down a black hole........

Geezer

what would scooby do

*nods*

Leslie

I was wondering how they were going to produce a proton beam as they call it. I did not realise that the electrons can be stripped out that easily, I imagined that they would have to do a bit of splitting to obtain the protons to inject into the accelerator. Thank you for that information.

I did say my memory is not perfect as far as those lessons are concerned. I don't possess a chemistry book and would be grateful if you could straighten out any confusion there may be about the existence of an element's atoms in a free state. I am sure it would not take you very long.

Why is it called a Hadron collider if they are using just protons rather than nuclei in the experiments. Seems a bit of a cheat to call a hydrogen nucleus a Hadron. Or do they intend to use nuclei from a heavier element in the future?

Les

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Wikipedia has quite a detailed article on the atom, which might be a good start (though it does, admittedly, waffle a bit):

Atom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

rabbos

The plan is to inject heavier ions later on, they will get round to that at some point but its early days.

Heavy ion collisions are many times more complex to understand and hence they will want to understand the simple proton-proton interactions first.

The Alice detector for one is optimised to observe these collisions and have been designed and built for this particular use.

lozgti

So we are recreating what happened one billionth of a second after the big bang and it seems to be taking an eternity.

Its like British public transport.I'm bored of waiting already

swampster

iTrader: (1)

Well I don't think they're actually colliding anything just yet are they?... it's more just a case of someone putting the plug in and powering the thing up.

The end of the world actually happens when they start smashing stuff into each other... and I think that's next year

So plenty of time to worry about the recession first

Geezer

First collisions are scheduled for Oct 21st, so at least we won't have to suffer Trick or Treating on Halloween.......

Geezer

RB5_245

Well according to this the beam's been circulating since august. So what's happened today?

Maybe it's just come 'on boost'?

OllyK

I'm concerned with it because you seem keen to point out that scientists haven't "absolutely proved x". Science nevers claims to have proved anything, all conclusions are tentative and open to revision if new evidence is presented. That's how science works and why it's better than religion which is highly dogmatic and will not change it's view despite the evidence.

So taking in to account there isn't absolute proof for anything, how do you decide what has sufficient evidence, especially in an area that you have little knowledge. It seem you're not prepared to accept the view of experts in a given field so what criteria do you work to?

The aim is to collide 2, but you'd be a hell of a marksman to do that. They fire a couple of batches at each other with the hope that a few will collide. See my earlier post on the exact and tiny amounts involved. You'll also note from that earlier post that they use Hydrogen as the source which in atomic form is a single proton, no neutron and an electron. It's usually found as H2 gs, so it's a matter of splitting the molecule and stripping off the electrons.

I don't see a question there, but there are no neutrons in Hydrogen.

Yes, the nucleii of Hydrogen atoms which contains...1 proton and no neutrons. You've jumped to a whole load of conclusions by setting off from the wrong starting point.

You're just choosing to not read the material that is out there, see above.

I've answered that before, and the answer is, it didn't. It produced sub-atomic particles (it's thought, hence this experiment) which came together to form protons and electons and so Hydrogen. It's when Hydrogen reacts in a star in a fusion reactor that we get all the heavier elements.

Certainly some elements are not happy in atomic form, Hydrogen is a good example. As such it's highly reactive and will react with other materials to either gain or lose an electron. Electrons orbit the nucleus in various orbits, each orbit has a maximum number of electrons that it can support. In general, reactions occur that tend to result in full electrons shells. The lowest level shell can support 2 electrons. Hydrogen has 1 electron so is looking to gain or lose 1 electron. This is a chemical reaction. I never heard of a change in "molecular state", I've even googled for it without much joy to see if it refers to something I know by another name. I certainly understand what you're talking about above, just not the term. I thought initially you may have been on about electron states where an electron can get promoted to a higher orbit, but it would seem that's not the case.

OllyK

Element: An element is a pure substance made up of only one kind of atom
Atom: the smallest component of an element having the chemical properties of the element
Molecule: The smallest unit of a substance that has all of the physical and chemical properties of the substance and that is composed of two or more atoms.

H - atom (Element)
H2 - Molecule (Elemental)
H2O - Molecule (Compund)


It's using the nucleus of a Hydrogen atom, which just happens to be just a single proton.

mart360

So there going to accelerate particles in 2 directions and then deflect the

beams until they collide. so these atoms will come together and the resulting

"effects" will be monitored..


now prehaps its stating the obvious, but Hiroshima, 1945 & Nagasaki 1945, are

the results of atoms colliding.

has anyone found out, what they propose to do if it goes **** up? a 17km

ring of colided atoms, would make for one helluva bang


Mart

OllyK

We're talking a volume equivalent to that of a grain of sand.

scooby(puppy power)

well there an hour reading this thread that i wont get back, as long as the world ends after i get my scoob back so i can feel boost one last time

OllyK

Oh the irony

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Whilst they get it ready and do all the science stuff, can we put small rodents in it and see what happens ?

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

Stick magnetic collars on them and you'd have the world's biggest, fastest hamster wheel

Odds on

That bring's a whole new meaning to the term 'stunt hamster'

Leslie

Thanks Olly and to others for the various explanations. The above one about atoms in a free state and their preference to exist as a molecule in a free state as in the hydrogen atom is what I had in mind and was why I treated a change of state in an atom as also producing a change in molecular state. Is that not correct then?

I had not realised just how they were going to produce a proton beam and now that I know I feel a bit better. I was picturing complex hadrons from heavier elements being smashed together including neutrons. it is still a worry though as far as I am concerned.

None of this was explained in the descriptions of the Cern apparatus, so I was trying to work it out from basic principals from my earlier scientific studies which was a while ago anyway.

Not sure why you are mocking my statement about Einstein's formula and the energy involved by getting close to the speed of light. If you square the higher speed in that formula doesn't the energy increase? As a matter of interest, what sort of speed will they expect to achieve with the protons in one of the two accelerators?

I hope they will learn enough from the colliding protons to be able to keep the whole business safe if they start colliding heavier masses.

Les

fast bloke

I think it is E= m*(c squared), so it doesn't matter how fast the m is going - the energy release from splitting an atom will always be the same for an atom of a given mass

Leslie

Thanks FB, all a lot clearer now. No wonder Olly was saying what he did!

Les

OllyK

Correct in terms of explantion in laymans term, but it isn't a "change in state" as such. H combining with another H is just a chemical reation. Such that to 2 atoms share the 2 electrons in their base valence shell and so essentially now both have full lower shells. I suppose if you consider parking a second car in garage changes the state of the garage then you could consider that a state change, but more normally (in chemistyr anyway) it refers to physical states of the element or compound (solid, liquid or gas) or the state / valence shell that an electron is occcupying.


Amazing how as understanding increases, fear reduces! Happy to keep trying to explain things.

I think this is where the saying "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" applies. Much of the press related stuff on CERN is a such a trivial level it's bordering on wrong and many of the scientifc papers are so in depth it's very hard to follow. Knowing some chemistry and physics and picking up some the stuff peddled by the press is how so many everyday situations suddenly cause panic in the masses!

The mock is because that equation is part of the "theory" of relativity, sorry cheap shot but it tickled me.

As to your question, the speed of the body of mass is not a factor in the equation. The potential energy in the moving body is actually pretty small beans in comparison the strong nuclear energy that is released whan matter is split.

I'm sure the guys running the experiments have no more interest in killing themselves than you have of being killed!

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

That's the formula for the amount of energy released when mass is actually converted into energy. The protons will also have an amount of kinetic energy, equal to the work done on them by the magnetic field in the LHC - equal to 1/2 * m * (v^2).

m, of course, increases with v as you approach the speed of light - so however much kinetic energy you give them, v can never be > c.

All this kinetic energy has to come from somewhere - in this case the LHC's electrical supply. That puts a distinct upper limit on it.

speedking

So why do they have to be accelerated then Can't you just drop an atom say a metre onto another one, hence cutting all the cost of building the tunnels etc?

I thought that E=mc˛ meant that as something speeds up, its mass increases, hence why the speed of light cannot be exceeded because infinite energy is required to accelerate that last little bit. Therefore although the mass of a stationary atom is very small, when accelerated near to c its mass increases hugely.

Therefore it would be pointless trying to accelerate a larger atom because with the energy available the result would be identical.

OllyK

I was meaning the nuclear energy released is not affected by the speed involved, but then I'm no physicist.

Bubba po

All that equation means is that energy is mass and vice versa. How MUCH energy is in mass were it all to be converted is the c (x speed of light) bit.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Couldn't they have scheduled it for Nov 5th for a laugh!

Klaatu

A 16 year old girl in India killed herself out of fear from all the "end of the world" prodictions in local news stories on TV.

Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

Damn! We are all still here!

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I am so scared I might die, so I will kill myself ?

Females and logic, dont mix.