Geneva atom smasher sets collision record

By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer

GENEVA – The world’s largest atom smasher conducted its first experiments at conditions nearing those after the Big Bang, breaking its own record for high-energy collisions with proton beams crashing into each other Tuesday at three times more force than ever before.

In a milestone for the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider’s ambitious bid to reveal details about theoretical particles and microforces, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, took high-tech photographs so they could study the disintegrating protons after they collided at a combined energy level of 7 trillion electron volts.

The collisions herald a new era for researchers working on the machine in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel below the Swiss-French border at Geneva.

“That’s it! They’ve had a collision,” said Oliver Buchmueller from Imperial College in London as people closely watched monitors.

In a control room, scientists erupted with applause when the first successful collisions were confirmed. Their colleagues from around the world were tuning in by remote links to witness the new record, which surpasses the 2.36 TeV CERN recorded last year.
Dubbed the world’s largest scientific experiment, researchers hope the machine can approach on a tiny scale what happened in the first split seconds after the Big Bang, which they theorize was the creation of the universe some 14 billion years ago.

The extra energy in Geneva is expected to reveal even more about the unanswered questions of particle physics, such as the existence of antimatter and the search for the Higgs boson, a hypothetical particle that scientists theorize gives mass to other particles and thus to other objects and creatures in the universe.

Tuesday’s initial attempts at collisions were unsuccessful because problems developed with the beams, said scientists working on the massive machine. That meant the protons had to be “dumped” from the collider and new beams had to be injected.

The atmosphere at CERN was tense considering the collider’s launch with great fanfare on Sept. 10, 2008. Nine days later, the project was sidetracked when a badly soldered electrical splice overheated, causing extensive damage to the massive magnets and other parts of the collider some 300 feet (100 meters) below the ground.

It cost $40 million to repair and improve the machine. Since its restart in November 2009, the collider has performed almost flawlessly and given scientists valuable data. It quickly eclipsed the next largest accelerator — the Tevatron at Fermilab near Chicago.
Two beams of protons began 10 days ago to speed at high energy in opposite directions around the tunnel, the coldest place in the universe, at a couple of degrees above absolute zero. CERN used powerful superconducting magnets to force the two beams to cross, creating collisions and showers of particles.

“Experiments are collecting their first physics data — historic moment here!” a scientist tweeted on CERN’s official Twitter account.

“Nature does it all the time with cosmic rays (and with higher energy) but this is the first time this is done in Laboratory!” said another tweet.

When collisions become routine, the beams will be packed with hundreds of billions of protons, but the particles are so tiny that few will collide at each crossing.

The experiments will come over the objections of some people who fear they could eventually imperil Earth by creating micro black holes — subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.
CERN and many scientists dismiss any threat to Earth or people on it, saying that any such holes would be so weak that they would vanish almost instantly without causing any damage.

Bivek Sharma, a professor at the University of California at San Diego, said the images of the first crashed proton beams were beautiful.

“It’s taken us 25 years to build,” he said. “This is what it’s for. Finally the baby is delivered. Now it has to grow.”

Related Posts

• 500 More Useless Facts [/caption] Most American car horns honk in the key of F. The name Wendy was made up for the book...
• Why We Exist: Matter Wins Battle Over Antimatter [/caption] by: Space. com Staff The seemingly inescapable fact that matter and antimatter particles destroy each other on contact has...
• Copenhagen treaty was 'held to ransom' said Gordon Brown Copenhagen treaty was 'held to ransom', says Gordon Brown Gordon Brown calls for reform of UN climate talks after Copenhagen...
• Tour de France - Facts and Figures [/caption] The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race that covers approximately 3,600 kilometres (2,200 mi) throughout France and...
• Nasa scientists braced for 'solar tsunami' to hit earth [/caption] The earth could be hit by a wave of violent space weather as early as Tuesday after a massive...

Related Websites

• How to Fix a Washing Machine That Has No Water Entering It [/caption]Washing machines can be great conveniences, much like dishwashers - we gain countless time because a machine is taking care...
• EarthTalk: On Technological Climate Change Fixes. Dear EarthTalk: What are some of the leading proposed technological fixes for staving off global warming, and how feasible are...
• What is Intuition? Intuition is an ill defined faculty. There is a lot of debate whether it is real at all. But from...
• Quick Green Reads For The Weekend Volume 143. It's Friday the 13th, so look out! Well, I am pretty much moved into my new place here in Denver,...
• All I wanted was some fruit juice! I realized I had forgotten my usual water/cranberry juice concoction when I got to work today. ("Aw, nuts", I thought.) ...