The Large Hadron Collider – or to give it its hip-hop name, the LHC – is set to return this November but with its power severely reduced.
This is not to say that the LHC will not have enough strength to end the world – it will.
But instead of being able to smash protons at a bone-melting 14 trillion electron volts, it will merely be able to bounce them together at just 7 trillion electron volts.
Another dimension
While 7 trillion electron volts is only half as exciting as 14, when we put this into context, the LHC is still the particle probing daddy. According to New Scientist no other collider has boldly gone this far, so we could be in for a few interesting revelations.
This is something that Greg Landsberg of Brown University agrees with: "Nature is full of surprises and something exciting and possibly unexpected could happen at 7 TeV," he explained to the New Scientist. "Extra dimensions could easily open up at that energy."
One step at a time, Mr Landsberg. Let's just get the thing up and running first.
Via New Scientist
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ripsnorter
August 9th 2009
1. Excellent article, from that Chacksfield fellow. Very funny and informative, too. Here's hoping Greg Landsberg's right: you can never have enough extra dimensions. Especially if they're full of scary monsters and we have to blast them back to where they came from. Finally! Science doing something fun and beneficial for mankind!
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