Linear Hadron Collider. What is the Hadron Collider for?

Abbreviated LHC (eng. Large Hadron Collider, abbreviated as LHC) is a charged particle accelerator in colliding beams, designed to accelerate protons and heavy ions (lead ions) and study the products of their collisions. The collider was built at CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research), located near Geneva, on the border of Switzerland and France. The LHC is the largest experimental facility in the world. More than 10,000 scientists and engineers from more than 100 countries have participated and are participating in construction and research.

It is named large because of its size: the length of the main ring of the accelerator is 26,659 m; hadronic - due to the fact that it accelerates hadrons, that is, heavy particles consisting of quarks; collider (English collider - collider) - due to the fact that particle beams are accelerated in opposite directions and collide at special collision points.

Specifications

The accelerator is supposed to collide protons with a total energy of 14 TeV (that is, 14 teraelectronvolts or 14 1012 electron volts) in the center of mass system of incident particles, as well as lead nuclei with an energy of 5 GeV (5 109 electron volts) for each pair of colliding nucleons. At the beginning of 2010, the LHC had already somewhat surpassed the previous champion in terms of proton energy - the proton-antiproton collider Tevatron, which until the end of 2011 worked at the National Accelerator Laboratory. Enrico Fermi (USA). Despite the fact that the adjustment of the equipment stretches for years and has not yet been completed, the LHC has already become the highest energy particle accelerator in the world, surpassing other colliders in energy by an order of magnitude, including the RHIC relativistic heavy ion collider operating at the Brookhaven Laboratory (USA). ).

The luminosity of the LHC during the first weeks of the run was no more than 1029 particles/cm 2 s, however, it continues to increase constantly. The goal is to achieve a nominal luminosity of 1.7·1034 particles/cm 2 s, which is of the same order of magnitude as the luminosities of BaBar (SLAC, USA) and Belle (English) (KEK, Japan).

The accelerator is located in the same tunnel formerly occupied by the Large Electron-Positron Collider. The tunnel with a circumference of 26.7 km was laid underground in France and Switzerland. The depth of the tunnel is from 50 to 175 meters, and the tunnel ring is inclined by about 1.4% relative to the surface of the earth. To hold, correct and focus proton beams, 1624 superconducting magnets are used, the total length of which exceeds 22 km. The magnets operate at a temperature of 1.9 K (-271 °C), which is slightly below the superfluid temperature of helium.

LHC detectors

The LHC has 4 main and 3 auxiliary detectors:

  • ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment)
  • ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS)
  • CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid)
  • LHCb (The Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment)
  • TOTEM (TOTal Elastic and diffractive cross section Measurement)
  • LHCf (The Large Hadron Collider forward)
  • MoEDAL (Monopole and Exotics Detector At the LHC).

ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb are large detectors located around beam collision points. The TOTEM and LHCf detectors are auxiliary, located at a distance of several tens of meters from the beam intersection points occupied by the CMS and ATLAS detectors, respectively, and will be used along with the main ones.

The ATLAS and CMS detectors are general-purpose detectors designed to search for the Higgs boson and "non-standard physics", in particular dark matter, ALICE - to study quark-gluon plasma in heavy lead ion collisions, LHCb - to study the physics of b-quarks, which will allow to better understand the differences between matter and antimatter, TOTEM is designed to study the scattering of particles at small angles, such as occurs during close spans without collisions (the so-called non-colliding particles, forward particles), which allows you to more accurately measure the size of protons, as well as control the luminosity of the collider, and, finally, LHCf - for the study of cosmic rays, modeled using the same non-colliding particles.

The work of the LHC is also associated with the seventh detector (experiment) MoEDAL, which is quite insignificant in terms of budget and complexity, designed to search for slowly moving heavy particles.

During the operation of the collider, collisions are carried out simultaneously at all four points of intersection of the beams, regardless of the type of accelerated particles (protons or nuclei). At the same time, all detectors collect statistics simultaneously.

Acceleration of particles in a collider

The speed of particles in the LHC on colliding beams is close to the speed of light in vacuum. The acceleration of particles to such high energies is achieved in several stages. In the first stage, low-energy Linac 2 and Linac 3 linear accelerators inject protons and lead ions for further acceleration. Then the particles enter the PS booster and then into the PS (proton synchrotron) itself, acquiring an energy of 28 GeV. With this energy, they are already moving at a speed close to light. After that, particle acceleration continues in the SPS (Proton Super Synchrotron), where the particle energy reaches 450 GeV. Then the bunch of protons is sent to the main 26.7-kilometer ring, bringing the energy of the protons to a maximum of 7 TeV, and at the collision points, the detectors record the events that occur. Two colliding proton beams, when completely filled, can contain 2808 bunches each. At the initial stages of debugging the acceleration process, only one bunch circulates in a bundle several centimeters long and of small transverse size. Then they begin to increase the number of clots. The clusters are located in fixed positions relative to each other, which move synchronously along the ring. The clumps in a certain sequence can collide at four points of the ring, where the particle detectors are located.

The kinetic energy of all hadron bunches in the LHC when it is completely filled is comparable to the kinetic energy of a jet aircraft, although the mass of all particles does not exceed a nanogram and they cannot even be seen with the naked eye. Such energy is achieved due to the speed of particles close to the speed of light.

The bunches go through a full circle of the accelerator faster than 0.0001 sec, thus making more than 10 thousand revolutions per second

Goals and objectives of the LHC

The main task of the Large Hadron Collider is to find out the structure of our world at distances less than 10–19 m, "probing" it with particles with an energy of several TeV. To date, a lot of indirect evidence has already accumulated that on this scale, physicists should open up a certain “new layer of reality”, the study of which will provide answers to many questions of fundamental physics. What exactly this layer of reality will turn out to be is not known in advance. Theorists, of course, have already proposed hundreds of various phenomena that could be observed at collision energies of several TeV, but it is the experiment that will show what is actually realized in nature.

Search for New Physics The Standard Model cannot be considered the ultimate theory of elementary particles. It must be part of some deeper theory of the structure of the microworld, the part that is visible in collider experiments at energies below about 1 TeV. Such theories are collectively referred to as "New Physics" or "Beyond the Standard Model". The main task of the Large Hadron Collider is to get at least the first hints of what this deeper theory is. To further combine fundamental interactions in one theory, various approaches are used: string theory, which was developed in M-theory (brane theory), supergravity theory, loop quantum gravity, etc. Some of them have internal problems, and none of them have experimental confirmation. The problem is that to carry out the corresponding experiments, energies are needed that are unattainable at modern particle accelerators. The LHC will enable experiments that were previously impossible and will likely confirm or disprove some of these theories. Thus, there is a whole range of physical theories with dimensions greater than four that suggest the existence of "supersymmetry" - for example, string theory, which is sometimes called superstring theory precisely because without supersymmetry it loses its physical meaning. Confirmation of the existence of supersymmetry would thus be an indirect confirmation of the truth of these theories. Studying top quarks The top quark is the heaviest quark and, moreover, it is the heaviest elementary particle discovered so far. According to the latest results from the Tevatron, its mass is 173.1 ± 1.3 GeV/c 2 . Because of its large mass, the top quark has so far been observed only at one accelerator, the Tevatron; other accelerators simply lacked the energy to produce it. In addition, top quarks are of interest to physicists not only in their own right, but also as a “working tool” for studying the Higgs boson. One of the most important channels for the production of the Higgs boson at the LHC is the associative production together with the top quark-antiquark pair. In order to reliably separate such events from the background, it is first necessary to study the properties of the top quarks themselves. Studying the mechanism of electroweak symmetry One of the main goals of the project is to experimentally prove the existence of the Higgs boson, a particle predicted by the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs in 1964 within the framework of the Standard Model. The Higgs boson is a quantum of the so-called Higgs field, when passing through which particles experience resistance, which we represent as corrections to mass. The boson itself is unstable and has a large mass (more than 120 GeV/c2). In fact, physicists are not so much interested in the Higgs boson itself, but in the Higgs mechanism of symmetry breaking of the electroweak interaction. Study of quark-gluon plasma It is expected that approximately one month per year will be spent in the accelerator in the mode of nuclear collisions. During this month, the collider will accelerate and collide in detectors not protons, but lead nuclei. In an inelastic collision of two nuclei at ultrarelativistic speeds, a dense and very hot lump of nuclear matter is formed for a short time and then decays. Understanding the phenomena occurring in this case (the transition of matter to the state of quark-gluon plasma and its cooling) is necessary to construct a more perfect theory of strong interactions, which will be useful both for nuclear physics and for astrophysics. The search for supersymmetry The first significant scientific achievement of experiments at the LHC may be the proof or refutation of "supersymmetry" - the theory that any elementary particle has a much heavier partner, or "superparticle". Study of photon-hadron and photon-photon collisions The electromagnetic interaction of particles is described as an exchange of (in some cases virtual) photons. In other words, photons are carriers of the electromagnetic field. Protons are electrically charged and surrounded by an electrostatic field, respectively, this field can be considered as a cloud of virtual photons. Any proton, especially a relativistic proton, includes a cloud of virtual particles as an integral part. When protons collide with each other, the virtual particles surrounding each of the protons also interact. Mathematically, the process of particle interaction is described by a long series of corrections, each of which describes the interaction by means of virtual particles of a certain type (see: Feynman diagrams). Thus, when studying the collision of protons, the interaction of matter with high-energy photons, which is of great interest for theoretical physics, is also indirectly studied. A special class of reactions is also considered - the direct interaction of two photons, which can collide both with an oncoming proton, generating typical photon-hadron collisions, and with each other. In the mode of nuclear collisions, due to the large electric charge of the nucleus, the influence of electromagnetic processes is even more important. Testing exotic theories Theorists at the end of the 20th century put forward a huge number of unusual ideas about the structure of the world, which are collectively called "exotic models". These include theories with strong gravity on the scale of about 1 TeV, models with a large number of spatial dimensions, preon models in which quarks and leptons themselves are composed of particles, models with new types of interaction. The fact is that the accumulated experimental data is still not enough to create a single theory. And all these theories themselves are compatible with the available experimental data. Since these theories can make specific predictions for the LHC, experimenters plan to test the predictions and look for traces of certain theories in their data. It is expected that the results obtained at the accelerator will be able to limit the imagination of theorists, closing some of the proposed constructions. Other It is also expected to detect physical phenomena outside the framework of the Standard Model. It is planned to study the properties of W and Z bosons, nuclear interactions at superhigh energies, the processes of production and decay of heavy quarks (b and t).


This year, scientists plan to reproduce in the nuclear laboratory those distant primordial conditions, when there were no protons and neutrons yet, but there was a continuous quark-gluon plasma. In other words, researchers hope to see the world of elementary particles in the form it was just a fraction of microseconds after the Big Bang, that is, after the formation of the Universe. The program is called How It All Began. In addition, for more than 30 years in the scientific world, theories have been built that explain the presence of mass in elementary particles. One of them suggests the existence of the Higgs boson. This elementary particle is also called divine. As one of the CERN staffers said, “having caught traces of the Higgs boson, I will come to my own grandmother and say: look, please, because of this little thing you have so many extra pounds.” But the existence of the boson has not yet been experimentally confirmed: all hopes are for the LHC accelerator.

The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator that will allow physicists to get deeper into matter than ever before. The essence of the work at the collider is to study the collision of two proton beams with a total energy of 14 TeV per proton. This energy is millions of times greater than the energy released in a single act of thermonuclear fusion. In addition, experiments will be carried out with lead nuclei colliding at an energy of 1150 TeV.

The LHC accelerator will provide a new step in a series of particle discoveries that began a century ago. Then scientists had just discovered all sorts of mysterious rays: x-rays, cathode radiation. Where do they come from, are their origins of the same nature, and if so, what is it?
Today we have answers to questions that allow a much better understanding of the origin of the universe. However, at the very beginning of the 21st century, we are faced with new questions, the answers to which scientists hope to get with the help of the LHC accelerator. And who knows what new areas of human knowledge the forthcoming research will entail. In the meantime, our knowledge of the universe is insufficient.

Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences from the Institute for High Energy Physics Sergei Denisov comments:
- Many Russian physicists are participating in this collider, and they pin certain hopes on the discoveries that may occur there. The main event that can happen is the discovery of the so-called hypothetical Higgs particle (Peter Higgs is an eminent Scottish physicist.). The role of this particle is extremely important. It is responsible for the formation of a mass of other elementary particles. If such a particle is discovered, it will be the greatest discovery. It would confirm the so-called Standard Model, which is now widely used to describe all processes in the microcosm. Until this particle is discovered, this model cannot be considered fully substantiated and confirmed. This is, of course, the very first thing that scientists expect from this collider (LHC).
Although, generally speaking, no one considers this Standard Model to be the ultimate truth. And, most likely, according to most theorists, it is an approximation or, sometimes they say, a “low-energy approximation” to a more General theory that describes the world at distances a million times smaller than the size of the nuclei. It's like Newton's theory is a "low energy approximation" to Einstein's theory - the theory of relativity. The second important task associated with the collider is to try to go beyond the limits of this very Standard Model, that is, to make the transition to new space-time intervals.

Physicists will be able to understand in which direction they need to move in order to build a more beautiful and more General theory of physics, which will be equivalent to such small space-time intervals. The processes that are studied there reproduce in essence the process of formation of the Universe, as they say, "at the time of the Big Bang." Of course, this is for those who believe in this theory that the universe was created in this way: an explosion, then processes at super high energies. The time travel in question may be related to this Big Bang.
Be that as it may, the LHC is a fairly serious advance into the depths of the microworld. Therefore, completely unexpected things can open up. I will say one thing, that completely new properties of space and time can be discovered at the LHC. In what direction they will be open - now it is difficult to say. The main thing is to break through further and further.

Reference

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is the world's largest research center in the field of particle physics. To date, the number of participating countries has grown to 20. About 7,000 scientists representing 500 research centers and universities use CERN's experimental equipment. By the way, the Russian Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences was directly involved in the work on the Large Hadron Collider. Our specialists are now busy installing and testing equipment designed and manufactured in Russia for this accelerator. The Large Hadron Collider is expected to be launched in May 2008. As Lyn Evans, head of the project, put it, the accelerator lacks only one detail - a large red button.

Many, one way or another, have already heard the term "Large Hadron Collider". For a simple inhabitant of these words, only the word "big" is familiar. But what is it really? And is it possible for a mere mortal to master this physical term.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a facility for physicists to experiment with elementary particles. According to the wording, the LHC is an accelerator of charged particles in colliding beams, designed to accelerate heavy ions and protons and study the products of collisions. In other words, scientists push atoms together and then see what happens.

At present, it is the largest experimental facility in the world. The size of this installation can be compared with a city with a diameter of almost 27 kilometers, which is located at a depth of a hundred meters. This facility is located near Geneva and cost $10 billion to build.

One of the main tasks of the LHC installation (according to scientists) is the search for the Higgs boson. Again, in simple words, this is an attempt to find a particle that is responsible for the presence of mass.

In parallel with this, experiments are being carried out at the collider to search for:

- particles outside the "Standard Model",

- magnetic monopoles (particles with a magnetic field),

- also, there is a study of quantum gravity and a study of microscopic holes.

These ones "microscopic black holes" and do not give many rest. Moreover, not only those for whom acquaintance with physics ended at school are worried, but also those who continue to study it at a professional level.

What is a black hole is known to everyone from school and from science fiction stories and films. Many (including scientists) are worried that such experiments, some of which are designed to attempt to recreate the "big bang" (after which, according to the theory, the universe arose) will lead to the inevitable collapse of the entire planet.

Scientists reassure that there is no danger from these experiments and experiments. But there is another fact that the luminaries of science never take into account. It's about weapons.

Every normal scientist, making a discovery or something, inventing, does it with two goals. The first goal is to help the world live better, and the second, less humane, but human, is to become famous.

But, for some reason, all inventions (without exaggeration), take their place in the creation of tools for the murder of the same humanity and famous scientists. Even such discoveries that have become philistine for us (radio, mechanical engines, satellite television, etc.), not to mention atomic energy, have firmly taken their place in the defense industry.

In 2016, it is planned to launch an installation similar to the European LHC in the Moscow region. But only, the Russian installation, unlike the "big brother", should in reality recreate the "big bang" on a small scale.

And who will guarantee that neighboring Moscow (and the Earth with it) will not become the progenitor of a new “black hole” in the vast universe?

There are many rumors about this mysterious device, many claim that it will destroy the Earth, creating an artificial black hole and putting an end to the existence of mankind. In reality, this device can take humanity to a whole new level, thanks to research conducted by scientists. In this topic, I tried to collect all the necessary information so that you get the impression of what the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is.

So, this topic contains everything you need to know about the Hadron Collider. On March 30, 2010, a historic event took place at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) - after several unsuccessful attempts and many upgrades, the creation of the world's largest machine for destroying atoms was completed. Preliminary tests initiating collisions of protons at relatively low speed were carried out during 2009 and there were no significant problems. The stage was set for an extraordinary experiment to be carried out in the spring of 2010. The main experimental model of the LHC is based on the collision of two proton beams that collide at maximum speed. This powerful collision destroys protons, creating extraordinary energies and new elementary particles. These new atomic particles are extremely unstable and can only exist for a fraction of a second. The analytical apparatus, which is part of the LHC, can record these events and analyze them in detail. Thus, scientists are trying to simulate the emergence of black holes.

On March 30, 2010, two beams of protons were fired into the 27 km tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider in opposite directions. They were accelerated to the speed of light, at which the collision occurred. A record-breaking energy of 7 TeV (7 teraelectronvolts) was recorded. The magnitude of this energy is a record and has very important values. Now let's get acquainted with the most important components of the LHC - sensors and detectors that register what is happening in the fractions in those fractions of seconds during which the proton beams collide. There are three sensors that play a central role during the March 30, 2010 impact - these are some of the most important parts of the collider, playing a key role during CERN's complex experiments. The diagram shows the location of the four main experiments (ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb), which are key LHC projects. At a depth of 50 to 150 meters underground, huge caves were dug specifically for giant sensors-detectors.



Let's start with a project called ALICE (an acronym for the Large Experimental Ion Collider). This is one of the six experimental facilities built at the LHC. ALICE is set up to study heavy ion collisions. The temperature and energy density of the resulting nuclear matter is sufficient for the birth of gluon plasma. The photo shows the ALICE detector and all of its 18 modules.


The Internal Tracking System (ITS) in ALICE consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon sensors that surround the impact point and measure the properties and precise positions of emerging particles. In this way, particles containing a heavy quark can be easily detected.

One of the main LHC experiments is also ATLAS. The experiment is carried out on a special detector designed to study collisions between protons. The ATLAS is 44 meters long, 25 meters in diameter and weighs approximately 7,000 tons. Proton beams collide in the center of the tunnel, the largest and most complex sensor of its kind ever built. The sensor captures everything that happens during and after the collision of protons. The goal of the project is to detect particles that have not previously been registered and not detected in our universe.

Discovery and confirmation Higgs boson- the most important priority of the Large Hadron Collider, because this discovery would confirm the Standard Model of the emergence of elementary atomic particles and standard matter. During the launch of the collider at full power, the integrity of the Standard Model will be destroyed. Elementary particles, whose properties we understand only partially, will not be able to maintain their structural integrity. The Standard Model has an upper energy limit of 1 TeV, at which the particle decays as it increases. With an energy of 7 TeV, particles with masses ten times larger than currently known could be created. True, they will be very fickle, but ATLAS is designed to detect them in those fractions of a second before they "disappear"

This photo is considered the best of all photos of the Large Hadron Collider:

Compact muon solenoid ( Compact Muon Solenoid) is one of two huge universal particle detectors at the LHC. About 3,600 scientists from 183 laboratories and universities in 38 countries support the work of CMS, which built and operates this detector. The solenoid is located underground in Cessy in France, near the border with Switzerland. The diagram shows the CMS device, which we will discuss in more detail.

The innermost layer is a silicon-based tracker. The tracker is the world's largest silicon sensor. It has 205 m2 of silicon sensors (approximately the area of ​​a tennis court) comprising 76 million channels. The tracker allows you to measure traces of charged particles in an electromagnetic field


On the second level is the Electromagnetic Calorimeter. The Hadron Calorimeter, at the next level, measures the energy of the individual hadrons produced in each case.

The next layer of the CMS of the Large Hadron Collider is a huge magnet. The Large Solenoid Magnet is 13 meters long and has a 6 meter diameter. It consists of cooled coils made of niobium and titanium. This huge solenoid magnet is working at full strength to maximize the lifetime of the particles.



5th layer - Muon detectors and return yoke. The CMS is designed to explore the various types of physics that might be found in the energetic collisions of the LHC. Some of this research is to confirm or improve measurements of the parameters of the Standard Model, while many others are in search of new physics.



Very little information is available about the March 30, 2010 experiment, but one fact is known for sure. CERN reported that an unprecedented burst of energy was recorded on the collider's third launch attempt, when beams of protons raced around a 27-kilometer tunnel and then collided at the speed of light. The record energy level recorded was fixed at the maximum that it can deliver in its current configuration - approximately 7 TeV. It was this amount of energy that was typical for the first seconds of the beginning of the Big Bang, which gave rise to the existence of our universe. Initially, this level of energy was not expected, but the result exceeded all expectations.

The diagram shows how ALICE captures a record energy surge of 7 TeV:

This experiment will be repeated hundreds of times during 2010. To make you understand how complicated this process is, we can give an analogy to the acceleration of particles in a collider. In terms of complexity, this is equivalent, for example, to shooting needles from the island of Newfoundland with such perfect accuracy that these needles collide somewhere in the Atlantic, circling the entire globe. The main goal is the discovery of an elementary particle - the Higgs Boson, which underlies the Standard Model for the construction of the universe

With the successful outcome of all these experiments, the world of the heaviest particles of 400 GeV (the so-called Dark Matter) can finally be discovered and explored.

Publication date: 09/17/2012

What is the Large Hadron Collider? Why is it needed? Can it cause the end of the world? Let's break it all down.

What is BAK?

This is a huge annular tunnel, similar to a particle dispersal pipe. It is located at a depth of about 100 meters under the territory of France and Switzerland. Scientists from all over the world participated in its construction.

The LHC was built to find the Higgs boson, the mechanism that gives particles mass. A secondary goal is also to study quarks - the fundamental particles that make up hadrons (hence the name "hadron" collider).

Many people naively believe that the LHC is the only particle accelerator in the world. However, more than a dozen colliders have been built around the world since the 1950s. LHC is considered the largest - its length is 25.5 km. In addition, its structure includes another, smaller in diameter, accelerator.

LHC and media

Since the start of construction, many articles have appeared about the high cost and danger of the accelerator. Most people believe that the money was wasted, and do not understand why it was necessary to spend so much money and effort in order to find some kind of particle.

First, the LHC is not the most expensive scientific project in history. In the south of France is the scientific center of Cadarache with an expensive thermonuclear reactor. Cadarache was built with the support of 6 countries (including Russia); at the moment, about 20 billion dollars have already been invested in it. Secondly, the discovery of the Higgs boson will bring many revolutionary technologies to the world. In addition, when the first cell phone was invented, people also met his invention negatively ...

How does the BAC work?

The LHC collides beams of particles at high speeds and monitors their subsequent behavior and interaction. As a rule, one particle beam is accelerated first on the auxiliary ring, and then it is sent to the main ring.

Many of the strongest magnets hold the particles inside the collider. And high-precision instruments record the movement of particles, since the collision occurs in a fraction of a second.

The organization of the work of the collider is carried out by CERN (Organization for Nuclear Research).

As a result, after huge efforts and financial investments, on July 4, 2012, CERN officially announced that the Higgs boson had been found. Of course, some properties of the boson found in practice differ from theoretical aspects, but scientists have no doubts about the “reality” of the Higgs boson.

Why do you need a BAC?

How useful is the LHC for ordinary people? Scientific discoveries related to the discovery of the Higgs boson and the study of quarks may in the future lead to a new scientific and technological revolution.

First, since mass is energy at rest (roughly speaking), it is possible to convert matter into energy in the future. Then there will be no problems with energy, which means that it will be possible to travel to distant planets. And this is a step towards interstellar travel ...

Secondly, the study of quantum gravity will allow, in the future, to control gravity. However, this will not happen soon, since gravitons are not yet very well understood, and therefore the device that controls gravity can be unpredictable.

Thirdly, there is an opportunity to understand M-theory (a derivative of string theory) in more detail. This theory states that the universe consists of 11 dimensions. M-theory claims to be the "theory of everything", which means that its study will allow us to better understand the structure of the universe. Who knows, maybe in the future a person will learn to move and influence other dimensions.

LHC and the End of the World

Many people argue that the work of the LHC can destroy humanity. As a rule, people who are poorly versed in physics talk about this. The launch of the LHC was postponed many times, but on September 10, 2008, it was nevertheless launched. However, it is worth noting that the LHC has never been accelerated to full power. Scientists plan to launch the LHC at full capacity in December 2014. Let's look at the possible causes of the end of the world and other rumors ...

1. Creating a black hole

A black hole is a star with huge gravity, which attracts not only matter, but also light, and even time. A black hole cannot appear out of nowhere, which is why CERN scientists believe that the chances of a stable black hole appearing are extremely small. However, it is possible. When particles collide, a microscopic black hole can be created, the size of which is enough to destroy our planet in a couple of years (or faster). But humanity should not be afraid, because, thanks to Hawking radiation, black holes quickly lose their mass and energy. Although there are pessimists among scientists who believe that a strong magnetic field inside the collider will not allow the black hole to disintegrate. As a result, the chance that a black hole will be created that will destroy the planet is very small, but there is such a possibility.

2. Formation of "dark matter"

She is also a “strange matter”, a strangelet (a strange droplet), a “strangelet”. This is matter that, when colliding with another matter, turns it into a similar one. Those. when a strangelet and an ordinary atom collide, two strangelets are formed, giving rise to a chain reaction. If such matter appears in the collider, then humanity will be destroyed in a matter of minutes. However, the chance that this will happen is as small as the formation of a black hole.

3. Antimatter

The version related to the fact that during the operation of the collider such an amount of antimatter may appear that will destroy the planet looks the most delusional. And the point is not even that the chances of the formation of antimatter are very small, but that there are already samples of antimatter on earth, stored in special containers where there is no gravity. It is unlikely that such an amount of antimatter will appear on Earth that will be capable of destroying the planet.

findings

Many residents of Russia do not even know how to spell the phrase "Large Hadron Collider" correctly, to say nothing about their knowledge of its purpose. And some pseudo-prophets argue that there are no intelligent civilizations in the Universe because each civilization, having achieved scientific progress, creates a collider. Then a black hole is formed, destroying civilization. From here they explain the large number of massive black holes in the center of galaxies.

However, there are also people who believe that we should start the LHC as soon as possible, otherwise, at the time of the arrival of aliens, they will capture us, as they consider us savages.

In the end, the only chance to find out what the LHC will bring us is just to wait. Sooner or later, we still find out what awaits us: destruction or progress.


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