Ring the bell
From
AFP:
Success for Large Hadron Collider as first atom smashed
Two circulating beams on Monday produced the first particle collisions in the world's biggest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), three days after its restart, scientists announced.
In a statement, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said two beams circulating simultaneously led to collisions at all four detection points during the afternoon and evening.
"It?s a great achievement to have come this far in so short a time," said CERN director general Rolf Heuer. "But we need to keep a sense of perspective. There's still much to do before we can start the LHC physics programme."
CERN had declared earlier Monday the relaunch of the 3.9 billion euro (five billion dollar) collider "an enormous success," after it was out of action for 14 months due to a serious electrical fault.
Scientists are looking to the collider -- inside a 27-kilometre (16.8-mile) tunnel straddling the Franco-Swiss border -- to mimic the conditions that followed the Big Bang and help explain the origins of the universe.
"Today the LHC circulated two beams simultaneously for the first time, allowing the operators to test the synchronization of the beams and giving the experiments their first chance to look for proton-proton collisions," CERN said in its statement.
The headline is technically incorrect as "atom smashing" refers to events involving the nucleus of an atom and what was happening was two proton beams were intersecting and doing low-level collisions.
Still, a wonderful event -- the real work is months and years ahead but this is a wonderful and momentous start.
Posted by DaveH at November 27, 2009 6:46 PM