Best of What's New 2008

Engineering

Large Hadron Collider

The biggest science experiment ever
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The Large Hadron Collider is the most ambitious engineering problem ever solved. Construction on the $10-billion behemoth—housed 300 feet underground in a 17-mile circular tube—spanned 14 years and required the efforts of 10,000 engineers and physicists. But its real engineering feat comes from the 1,200 magnets—each 35 tons in weight, 50 feet long, and powerful enough to crush a bus between them—that steer a stream of protons traveling at nearly the speed of light. These magnets are powered by 4,700 miles’ worth of superconducting niobium-titanium cable, and work only when cooled to 3.4˚F above absolute zero, colder than deep space.

Large Hadron Collider
Large Hadron Collider secondary:
To make the job more challenging, the entire thing constantly attempts to destroy itself: The extreme magnetic field bends not just protons but the magnets themselves. Thick, demagnetized iron collars hold the magnets steady, but even a fraction of an inch of movement anywhere in the machine triggers an automatic shutdown, like the one that happened in September. But that’s a minor setback for the LHC on its quest to detect the Higgs boson (a.k.a. the “god particle”) and thus complete the Standard Model, on which all of particle physics is based. “This is the modern equivalent of building the pyramids,” says University of California at Berkeley physicist and Nobel Prize winner George Smoot. “It should be a source of pride for the human race.” lhc.web.cern.ch

Vital Statistics
Power consumption: 120 megawatts
Data flow: 15 petabytes/year
Proton collisions/second: 600 million
Proton speed: 11,245 laps/second

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benihana
11/26/08 at 12:45 am

I believe you meant to say 3.4 degrees K, not 3.4 degrees F

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pivis
11/27/08 at 4:33 am

benihana
They mean 3.4˚F 'above' absolute zero. It's 1.9˚K.

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sowerofcrop
12/11/08 at 10:30 pm

so when its done with what its made to do could it become the biggest electric motor in the universe.
Then it could blow hurricanes and tornado away and pump water to the desert and the ice caps and somehow help nasa,ford,chevy, and dodge!!

all aside this is the coolist thing built in many generations!!!

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dipap
12/12/08 at 1:25 pm

I wonder how much the whole system could be valued in modern currency, like for insurance purposes for instance.
I know it's been built over several decades and that all of the components have been custom built but still... it must have a price. Any guess?? thanx

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elizongu
12/19/08 at 5:51 pm

The absolute zero is -273.15 C if they say that they are 3.4 F above that gives you something around -257.2C

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viz
12/25/08 at 12:31 am

Just want to clarify the temperature issue,

Absolute zero = 0k = -273.15 C = -459.66 F

They say the cables work at 3.4 F above absolute zero
so add 3.4 F to absolute zero which gives you -456.26 F

-456.26 F = 1.9 K (> 0, above absolute zero)

and 1.9 K = -271.25 C

Is this correct?

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rangax
12/30/08 at 11:11 pm

isnt this thing suppose to create anti-protons??

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