LHC Scientists Simulate the Sound of the 'God Particle'

By Clay Dillow Posted 06.23.2010 at 4:45 pm 4 Comments

Particle Collision Data from the LHC From all that visual noise, music.

If a theoretical force-carrying, subatomic particle were to materialize in the universe and no one were around to hear it, would it make a sound? Existential aspects aside, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider believe that the elusive Higgs boson, should it prove to be real, will most definitely make a sound, and they plan to be around to hear it. In fact, that's one of the ways they plan to detect the so-called "god particle," and they've simulated the sounds a Higgs boson might make so they can listen for its arrival.

The sound won't actually come from the particles themselves, but from the ATLAS experiment, one of the four huge sensors placed within the 17-mile particle collider. One of ATLAS's sensors, the calorimeter, measures energy from proton collisions is made of seven concentric layers. Each layer represents a different note, and their pitches can change based on the amount of energy produced by a particle collision.

From that, researchers at the LHC have simulated what the emergence of a Higgs boson might sound like if and when it occurs within ATLAS based on what they think the energy of a particle's emergence would produce. The sounds are actually very musical and quite beautiful, if a bit eerie (akin to listening to an Aphex Twin record). Researchers will use the sound signatures as an analytical tool to help them identify new particles if they do indeed emerge from the particle collisions.

Click through to BBC to hear the background symphony of the universe, in three beautiful movements.

[BBC]

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4 Comments

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thor0997

06/24/10 at 10:58 am

It's really intresting that they can make actual sounds with sub-atomic particles. It seems kind of appropriate that the bigggest and one of the most important scientific experiments makes beautiful thing like the pictures of atomic shattering and the universal symphony.

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rpenri

06/25/10 at 1:59 am

So...what if the Higgs boson doesn't sound anything like what they think it does? Will one be created and everyone misses it because the sound it emitted (if any at all) was completely different from what they thought it would be.

Okay...so it's not the ONLY way to detect one of these particles...but seriously? It's like trying to predict what the sound of one hand clapping is. It's just dumb to even contemplate.

So why not just wait for the sound of something that's "unusual", or not normal within the rings at LHC. Instead of wasting time figuring out what it may sound like, maybe they should concentrate on creating one of these particles.

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FlexGunship

08/11/10 at 3:01 pm

@rpeni,

Sound is simply applied to the mathematical results of computational analysis.

Imagine that you had a spreadsheet that displayed all of your finances. There's no sound implicit in it. Next, imagine that you assign certain musical aspects to mathematical concepts in your spreadsheet. For example: everytime you spend money, the next note is of lower pitch, but if you get some money, the next note is of higher pitch. Now, ascribe rules other rules to other situations. Very high value transactions are loud! But small transactions are quiet... etc...

Finally, you could make a bold statement. "I could hear if someone went bankrupt. Or "I can hear someone winning the lottery."

To then say: "Well, what if that's not what it sounds like" is silly!! Just because you don't know precisely how loud it is, or what pitch it is, doesn't mean you couldn't tell it apart from all of the other sounds. It would be obvious!

Particle physics can be defined with only a few significant values. Assign them to audio equivalents, and listen. The Higgs isn't a mystery. If it appears it will have DEFINITE properties.

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HolisticDNA

12/11/11 at 12:08 pm

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