Paranoid particles. A guide to the CERN LHC.

There has been rather a lot of misinformation and fearmongering about the LHC at CERN.
Here is some non woo woo information about the LHC and the experiments it will be performing.

The LHC will be running six separate experiments.

ALICE, which will attempt to create the same conditions as the big bang.
[link to aliceinfo.cern.ch]

ATLAS, which is searching for the now famous Higgs Boson and extra dimensions.
[link to atlas.ch]

TOTEM, which studies forward particles to focus on physics that is not accessible to the general-purpose experiments.
[link to totem.web.cern.ch]

LHCF, which uses forward particles created inside the LHC as a source to simulate cosmic rays in laboratory conditions.
[link to public.web.cern.ch]

LHCB, which specialises in investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the 'beauty quark', or 'b quark'.
[link to public.web.cern.ch]

CMS, which uses a general-purpose detector to investigate a wide range of physics, including the search for the Higgs boson, extra dimensions, and particles that could make up dark matter. Although it has the same scientific goals as the ATLAS experiment, it uses different technical solutions and design of its detector magnet system to achieve these.
[link to public.web.cern.ch]

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) can achieve an energy that no other particle accelerators have reached before, but Nature routinely produces higher energies in cosmic-ray collisions.
Concerns about the safety of whatever may be created in such high-energy particle collisions have been addressed for many years.
In the light of new experimental data and theoretical understanding, the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) has updated a review of the analysis made in 2003 by the LHC Safety Study Group, a group of independent scientists.
[link to lsag.web.cern.ch]

LSAG reaffirms and extends the conclusions of the 2003 report that LHC collisions present no danger and that there are no reasons for concern. Whatever the LHC will do, Nature has already done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies.

Here are a few more links to help you understand more about this amazing and beautiful example of human technological achievement.
[link to cdsweb.cern.ch] (the CERN LHC faq)
[link to en.wikipedia.org] (general LHC info)

LHC timetables etc.
[link to mgt-lhc-machine-advisory-committee.web.cern.ch]

Well hopefully you know a bit more about the LHC now, and hopefully you realise that it's not going to bring about quantum Doom, rather it will bring about another leap in our knowledge about the universe and reality, and I for one am eager to see what it can tell us, if we can ever get it running again that is...

Have a good one.
;)


Last Edited by Jerry from NASA on 10/19/2009 09:35 PM