All That Jazz
The CERN Project - What
the Heck is a Hadron Collider ?
04-07-14
A Hadron Collider is a research tool used by scientists
to accelerate particles (such as protons) to very high
kinetic energies and allowing them to impact each other.
The byproduct of these collisions are analyzed to
give evidence of the subatomic world and the associated
natural laws.
Once such collider is the
Large Hadron
Collider built by the European Organization for Nuclear
Research (or in French, the Conseil Européen pour la
Recherche Nucléaire, or
CERN) from 1998
to 2008. It has
been spotlighted by the documentary film
Particle Fever
(2013).
Although the film marks an event and tells the public about
the famously theorized Higgs Boson that has come to light,
it doesn’t really explain how it works.
In fact, the movie only gives a “bumbling” or
“lighter-human” side of the project: the scientists who
can’t decide if their time and efforts will ever mean
anything or even pay off.
It misses as a true documentary over a scientific
event because it doesn’t explain the large hadron collider,
such as:
i) Where the protons are introduced into the
accelerator and how many. (They are introduced as packets
from a tank of hydrogen gas and
then stripped of their electrons before entering the
accelerator).
ii)
How the protons are accelerated.
(They are accelerated in four stages, and thus four
actual loops are
used,
the final being the 17 mile loop where the particles
collide. The
three smaller loops are apart
from the main loop to “pre-accelerate” the particles).
iii) The main loop has two tubes side by side.
(The main loop is actually constructed of two side-by-side
tubes to move the
protons in opposite directions.
They cross at four points and this is where the
collisions occur. There
are detection systems at each of the four points and
therefore the four project
names: ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, and LHCb).
iv) The
proton particles are accelerated and “steered” by the
magnets. (Not only do the superconducting
magnets make the moving particles go faster - approaching
the speed of light – they guide them along
their circular path and then “squeeze” them into a tighter
path aligning them to eventually collide).
v)
The apparatus that takes up five stories is called a
detector. (The
hardware that appears like the
“fictional stargate” and requires five stories of space is
actually the detector equipment needed for
the aftermath of the collisions).
vi) Why the
collider is built underground.
(Is it in case of an explosion or a likelihood of a
black hole ?
No. Any such danger does not exist at such
scale and quantity of particles.
The collider is built
underground to block incoming radiations such as the
interference of radio waves.
It is underground
to protect the project).
There seems to be one such hypothesis why the project was
never fully explained in the movie.
If the whole idea were finally explained, how do you
explain to the scientist that their entire time spent was
for proving the inverse of sub-atomic particles ?
It is not hadrons (or quarks) that are important, but
atoms that remain the one and only true building block of
nature and which provides the practical and purposeful needs
to mankind.
Only the knowledge of atoms are needed to provide
metallurgical, synthetic, and natural products such as
soaps, paints, detergents, chemicals, and all metal alloys,
plastics, and composites; and all the thousands and
thousands of ordinary and useful materials and products that
enrich our everyday lives.
However, the CERN project did provide this vital anti-thesis
in completing our knowledge of the universe and allowing us
to continue forward.
If jazz were considered the anti-thesis to classical
music, then CERN is the jazz music.
Although not necessarily true to one's ear, it
provides intellectual understanding, knowledge, and backing
to what could be truer to one's ear, or classical music.
It did answer the Higgs boson question, further
supports the big bang theory, and even invent the World Wide
Web. It seems
to be inevitable that we need a change of pace from time to
time, and that dabbing unknown areas brings more light to
the main theme, even if it does result in “all that jazz.”