Thursday, November 12, 2009

Hunt for God Particle Continues



This story is like to a Dan Brown novel, but it is completely true and , I have to admit, intriguing. The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator located near Geneva, deep underground. It is searching for tiny particles called Haldrons and attempting to recreate the environment just after the Big Bang. Because of this, many people have called the invisible particles they are searching for God Particles.

Also, this entire idea has some controversy around it, as scientists aren't sure what will happen if they are successful. One possibility is that the accelerator could create a mini-blackhole. Nobody really know what would happen if that were to happen. Some think it would evaporate, others that it might be sustained and grow. Obviously you see the problem with that! There are some that feel that this device, if/when operated at full power, could very well trigger events that lead to out destruction.



So, it is a little odd that every time they power this sucker up, something happens. It was turned on (with no plains to boot it up to full speed) and within a few days it was shut down due to cooling problems. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/20/2369983.htm) They got it back online then was shut back down for two more months due to problems.



Plagued by problems, for the past year they had been replacing magnets and finally replaced the last one. However, as soon as they got it up and running, something else odd happened. A bird flew over and dropped some bread, apparently into some critical area, and once more, the atom smasher is down.

I don't know how a bit of bread could shut down a 10 billion dollar machine, but there are some theories...including that a time traveler is trying to save us and the future by sabotaging our search for the God particle.


This is interesting stuff, read it for yourself.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/11/lhc.large.hadron.collider.beam/index.html


http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2009/PR06.09E.html


http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html


http://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/lhc-machine-outreach/lhc-machine-outreach-faq.htm

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