LHC First Beam
Yes, it will happen today! Exactly now, at 8.15am GMT on 10 September scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, the same place where the lovely web was born, will attempt to circulate a beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the first time. It took a while and some money, literally 14 years and 4 billion pounds. When back in 2004 I was working on LASER, the alarm system for LHC, I could see how big, how complex the accelerator is. The software engineering is easy and predictable comparing to such big hardware project however we are doomed to miss deadlines, I am not that bothered that it took couple of years longer to have the first beam that scientists envisaged. Talking about money, that’s the price of research and moving forward as civilization. It certainly will not change an average Joe’s life straight away but it will help scientist to answer some big questions about the universe: why particles have mass, what dark matter may be made of, and why matter survived its brush with antimatter when the universe was young. Just to remind you that the LHC is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, and will produce beams seven times more energetic, and around 30 times more intense than any previous machine. There will be official live webcast from Geneva which you can follow.
And no, noone will die and the world will not disappear in any black hole!
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smartguy said,
September 10, 2008 @ 8:40 am
hey, its been running for a couple of minuites now and im still alive!