Several biggest errors of particle physicists.

[Mailo]

The link you gave speaks of a BEC of magnons. A magnon is not an atom, but an excitation state of the electrons in an atom. The bosenova experiment dealt with a BEC of atoms, which needs 10^-7K.

True, and in both case the result of the experiment was BEC.

And in only one case is a bosenova possible, the extremely cold one. Bosenova is a rather stupid name though, "nova" implies huge amounts of energy, while the energy "released" here seems to be rather smaller than that of a candle flame.

And no, an atom is still an atom even if it is part of a BEC. A BEC is created by cooling down a cloud of atoms until you get the phase transition to BEC, but you still have the same bunch of atoms, just with different behaviors.

No. In the case of "ice" you can say it is "water" because it are water-molecules, but in this case the composition of the atoms is changed into something new; Bose-Einstein Condensate, made out of bosons.

Er ... you seem to have misunderstood something fundamental about BEC. Atoms can only form a BEC if they are bosons (which means a spin of 1,2,3,... , as opposed to fermions, which have a spin of 0.5, 1.5, 2.5 etc) to start out with.

An atom of Helium4 is a boson (2 neutrons, 2 protons, 2 electrons, each with spin 1/2, combine to give a full integer value for the spin. An atom of Helium3 is not a boson, but a neutron (the spins of 1 neutron, 2 protons and 2 electrons cannot combine for a full integer value, but only to something.5).

A cloud of He4-atoms can form a BEC if they are cooled down (but they still remain atoms of He4!), while a cloud of He3-atoms will not.

I read the link you gave for the conversion of detector into BEC and ... no. Particle collisions are in no way whatsoever similar to laser cooling.

I don't quite understand why you linked the two wikipedia pages. Of course you cannot calculate conservation of energy using Newton and the Coriolis force ... you need to take relativistic effects into account.

[MagneticTrap]

The tradegy in Poland is very saddening. It reminds me why I hate airplanes.

In 90-ths I had performed hundreds of flights on different passenger and cargo air plains.
There were several situations, close to air catastrophe, so, I do, know the real probability of death in air catastrophe. It is higher, than I wrote in the last my post, - not 0.000001, but 10-40 times more.

However, what is your basis for saying the probability of us dying by the LHC is 0.5? I was under the impression that you lowered your probabilities.

I lowered slightly the 3.5 TeV – probability.
But physicist showed, that we are “cannon meat”, - they will not stop their experiments, so, plus to lowered 3.5 TeV probability the ion- and 7 TeV - probabilities. The Earth will be exploded by physicists with probability, more than 50%.

[chelle]

The link you gave speaks of a BEC of magnons. A magnon is not an atom, but an excitation state of the electrons in an atom. The bosenova experiment dealt with a BEC of atoms, which needs 10^-7K.

True, and in both case the result of the experiment was BEC.

And in only one case is a bosenova possible, the extremely cold one.

That is your assumption.

Er ... you seem to have misunderstood something fundamental about BEC. Atoms can only form a BEC if they are bosons ...

It doesn't really matter, Bose-Einstein condensates has been obtained for a multitude of isotopes, and if it's not a Bosonic it can be a Fermionic Condensate.

A cloud of He4-atoms can form a BEC if they are cooled down (but they still remain atoms of He4!)

The atom is a basic unit of matter consisting of a dense, central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. A Bose–Einstein condensate is a state of matter of a dilute gas of weakly interacting bosons. Can't you spot the difference?

I read the link you gave for the conversion of detector into BEC and ... no. Particle collisions are in no way whatsoever similar to laser cooling.

During collisions, a lot of partons, photons, phonons and magnons are released that have their effect on their surrounding matter. It's like an endless series of hurricanes passing through, a lot of cooling going on I would say.

I don't quite understand why you linked the two wikipedia pages ...

Because it's hard to find out if there is energy coming out protons, during Pb-Pb collisions.

[Mailo]

I'm sorry, but I'd really suggest you read up what the words you keep using actually mean.
It is not my assumption ... to quote from the NIST article:

In a Bose-Einstein condensate, virtually all the atoms in the ultra-cold gas fall into the lowest-energy quantum mechanical state.
...
The condensate first shrinks as expected, but rather than gradually clumping together in a mass, there is instead a sudden explosion of atoms outward. This "explosion," which actually corresponds to a tiny amount of energy by normal standards, continues for a few thousandths of a second. Left behind is a small cold remnant condensate surrounded by the expanding gas of the explosion.

Note the repeated mention of "atoms".
In your room temperature case, the BEC consists of quantummechanical states in a solid block of matter ... if these would "explode outward", you're left with a solid block with a slight electric charge.

I know that BEC have been obtained for several isotopes, yet those isotopes are still atoms and bosons, whether they are currently solid, liquid, a gas or a BEC.

Re your laser cooling analogy:
First of all, phonons and magnons can only exist in matter, NOT in the vacuum of the beam pipe. Neither are produced in particle collisions.
Secondly, to get a net cooling effect from laser beams, you need 6 laser beams, not one, and you need a beam with one single energy, not a whole spread of energies like you'd see in the results of a particle collision.
So no, there's no cooling going on, only a slight heating up.

And I didn't understand your last sentence, sorry. What does "energy coming out protons" have to do with Coreolis force and Newton's laws?

[chelle]

It is not my assumption ...

For room temperature it is your assumption that it cannot explode.

Note the repeated mention of "atoms".
In your room temperature case, the BEC consists of quantum-mechanical states in a solid block of matter ... if these would "explode outward", you're left with a solid block with a slight electric charge.

... and scattering particles.

I know that BEC have been obtained for several isotopes, yet those isotopes are still atoms and bosons, whether they are currently solid, liquid, a gas or a BEC.

Atoms are a configuration of bosons, just like BEC is also a configuration of bosons, but that doesn't make Atoms equal to BEC. Similarly "137" is not the same as "713" because it uses the same numbers, it is a different state of mater.

Re your laser cooling analogy:
First of all, phonons and magnons can only exist in matter, NOT in the vacuum of the beam pipe. Neither are produced in particle collisions.

Perhaps not in the vacuum of the beam pipe but once the collisions happen there is a lot of Bremsstrahlung, and there are Bose quasi-particles (phonons, magnons, plasmons)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle

Secondly, to get a net cooling effect from laser beams, you need 6 laser beams, not one, and you need a beam with one single energy, not a whole spread of energies like you'd see in the results of a particle collision. So no, there's no cooling going on, only a slight heating up.

Indeed the standard experiment uses a setup of 6 lasers, because it is otherwise to difficult to cool the atoms, and still be able to control, and measure them. But that doesn't mean that it also can happen in an other high energised environment.

And I didn't understand your last sentence, sorry. What does "energy coming out protons" have to do with Coreolis force and Newton's laws?

For a chain-reaction to happen there need to be energy coming out of protons, but from the measurements we have now there is supposedly no energy release. I'm just saying that by using particle collisions it is hard to measure if there is energy coming out.

[tswsl1989]

Perhaps not in the vacuum of the beam pipe but once the collisions happen there is a lot of Bremsstrahlung, and there are Bose quasi-particles (phonons, magnons, plasmons)

I don't think the particle densities exist for phonons etc to exist and propagate within the collision debris

Indeed the standard experiment uses a setup of 6 lasers, because it is otherwise to difficult to cool the atoms, and still be able to control, and measure them. But that doesn't mean that it also can happen in an other high energised environment.

You need to have laser light coming in 6 directions to cool the atoms. Cooling with lasers to form a BEC is not a high energy environment! Quite the opposite, the lasers are being used to lower the energies towards zero. Nothing like in a particle collision.

For a chain-reaction to happen there need to be energy coming out of protons, but from the measurements we have now there is supposedly no energy release. I'm just saying that by using particle collisions it is hard to measure if there is energy coming out.

Read the particle collisions page on the Portal Wiki. Specifically the bits about 4-momentum.

[chelle]

I don't think the particle densities exist for phonons etc to exist and propagate within the collision debris

Not necessarily within the debris, but within the material that makes up the detectors.

You need to have laser light coming in 6 directions to cool the atoms. Cooling with lasers to form a BEC is not a high energy environment! Quite the opposite, the lasers are being used to lower the energies towards zero. Nothing like in a particle collision.

In a particle collision the enormous heat is in the target spot, but the spraying could cool the environment, like a rotating fan cools the room, but at it's rotation point its hot.

Read the particle collisions page on the Portal Wiki. Specifically the bits about 4-momentum.

I will.

[Mailo]

No, it is not my assumption. The room temperature example happens inside a solid block of matter, the objects in BEC are not real particles but quasi-particles. Thus, no explosion of particles outward and no scattering particles.

No, atoms are not "a configuration of bosons", atoms are at most a configuration of fermions (protons, neutrons and electrons are all fermions, as are quarks). Some atoms themselves (such as He4) are bosons.
Note that the electron hull is necessary. One often-used example is Rubidium 87, which consists of 40 neutrons, 37 protons and 37 electrons. The atomic core of Rubidium 87 would be a fermion, only the whole atom is a boson.

BEC is a configuration of bosons, that is correct and just another way of saying BEC is a configuration of atoms. Your sentence "but that doesn't make Atoms equal to BEC" leads me to believe that you don't really know what a BEC, or for that matter an atom is.

And no, there are no phonons, magnons or plasmons created in particle collisions. The first two require a crystal lattice to exist, the latter a plasma of ions and electrons (not a quark-gluon-plasma, something completely different).

And again no, cooling cannot happen in any type of "high energised environment". Actually that is a contradiction in itself, high energy means high temperatures. Please read up on how laser cooling works, and how a monoenergetic beam plays a critical role.

And finally again no, it is rather easy to determine if energy is created in collisions. The detectors determine momentum and energy of particles. Using these values, the total energy present can be calculated. It isn't possible using Newton though.

Edit: just read your response, which came while I was typing. You really have to step away from your analogies. Comparing particle collisions to a rotating fan with its friction generated heat takes the cake though.

[MagneticTrap]

Subnuclear BEC or FDC can ruin the Earth. If A is true, Atomic BEC can ruin LHC or Geneva or part of Europe.

It is a riddle, - where did thousands of atoms disappeared in the “bose-nova implosion” of cold bosonic gas.
Supposition A: A microscopic black hole was formed and it was immediately evaporated; the process of evaporation was accompanied by multiple barion-lepton annihilation.
Supposition B: Thousands of gas particles condensed into solid or liquid droplet and it was lost by experimentalists.

I think that B is much more probable than A. Nevertheless if A is true, then there is a quite small probability that some particle (or condensate of particles), created at p-p collisions can enter into a cold He4 and can form the center of He4 condensation into Atomic BEC. This process will be accompanied by huge energy output, which is equivalent to the energy output of dozens/hundreds of nuclear bombs. In a result LHC / Geneva / part of Europe will be ruined. But the Earth, as a whole, will not explode.

The Earth can be ruined completely by subnuclear BEC or FDC.

@Magnetic trap: I'm not quite sure what you mean by "subnuclear BEC". Which particles exactly share quantum states in that case?

Magnetic hole is a condensate from “unknown bosons”. Minimal magnetic hole, able to ruin protons and capture resulting bosons, must have at birth at least 100-1000 such bosons. Mass of a single boson in a condensate is about 2/3 of mass of proton. 1/3 of mass of proton is equivalent to binding energy of one boson in this subnuclear BEC.

Droplets of strange matter can be considered as subnuclear FDC.

Isn't strange-matter made up out of 4 quarks or so, while Fermi-gas is just an atom transformed into a collection of non-interacting fermions.

Super dense droplet of strange matter is a subnuclear Fermi-Dirac Condensate. N(uds) = a droplet of N lambda-hyperons. If N is about 100-1000, then the mass of one lambda-hyperon in a droplet is much less than a mass of free proton. Consequently, a droplet will capture surrounding protons and convert them into captured hyperons and decaying K-mesons.

It is possible to write down several types of subnuclear FDC. So, the probability of Earth explosion, initiated by LHC, is very big.

Nuclear physicists are all criminals now. They know this explosion possibility, but continue their crazy experiments. To be useful to civilization, the nuclear physics must be returned into the field of their energies, measured in MeV units, which is by 1 000 000 times smaller than TeV.

[chriwi]

For me the possibility to get BEC out of high energy collisisions is somewhat far fetched. Nevertheless the mere existence of the Bosenova shows that for experiments never done before ther always is the possibility to get an unexpected outcome wich might or might not be dangerous.

[chelle]

It is not my assumption. The room temperature example happens inside a solid block of matter, the objects in BEC are not real particles but quasi-particles. Thus, no explosion of particles outward and no scattering particles.

So Ivan was right to say that there are different types of BEC.

Atoms are not "a configuration of bosons", atoms are at most a configuration of fermions (protons, neutrons and electrons are all fermions, as are quarks). Some atoms themselves (such as He4) are bosons.
Note that the electron hull is necessary. One often-used example is Rubidium 87, which consists of 40 neutrons, 37 protons and 37 electrons. The atomic core of Rubidium 87 would be a fermion, only the whole atom is a boson.

BEC is a configuration of bosons, that is correct and just another way of saying BEC is a configuration of atoms.

For an Atom to become Bosonic all it's parts have to become bosons, so it is no longer the same configuration internally, and thus it is no longer an atom. For a group of atoms to become bosonic, all the atoms in the group need to loose their atomic properties so it is no longer a group of atoms.

There are no phonons, magnons or plasmons created in particle collisions. The first two require a crystal lattice to exist, the latter a plasma of ions and electrons (not a quark-gluon-plasma, something completely different).

The idea comes directly from the physics of solids. Instead of a field spread throughout all space a solid contains a lattice of positively charged crystal atoms. When an electron moves through the lattice the atoms are attracted to it, causing the electron's effective mass to be as much as 40 times bigger than the mass of a free electron. The postulated Higgs field in the vacuum is a sort of hypothetical lattice which fills our Universe. http://www.hep.yorku.ca/what_is_higgs.html

Cooling cannot happen in any type of "high energised environment". Actually that is a contradiction in itself, high energy means high temperatures.

Not necessarily: "Physicists knew that at atomic scales over very short periods of time, statistical mechanics is pushed beyond its limit, and the second law does not apply. Put another way, situations that break the second law become much more probable." Second law of thermodynamics "broken"
Force can accelerate: heat up, and Force can slow down: cooling.

It is rather easy to determine if energy is created in collisions. The detectors determine momentum and energy of particles. Using these values, the total energy present can be calculated. It isn't possible using Newton though.

As already discussed in an other topic:
Once however they (partons) move at close to the velocity c of light, the time they spend is roughly the same, regardless of whether they move at 0.99c or 0.999999c, where the energy is much larger. If all particles in the jet are fast and all have the same charge, they all leave "minimum ionization" tracks which look the same.

[chelle]

For me the possibility to get BEC out of high energy collisisions is somewhat far fetched.

Indeed it is far fetched, but once you start raising the bar you know that shit will hit the fan. You don't need to be an Einstein to figure this out, the more extreme you go the more likely that burn-up's happen. This brings up the argument that Cosmic rays show us that all is safe and we're far from the "red-alert" zone. But if I may bring up an other sketch and some scribbles. Just to show that ultra-high-energy particles maybe an explosion of an incoming small meteorite, as long as we don't measure it up-close we don't know for sure.

For example let's say there are 3 types of incoming objects that hit our atmosphere:
- Sub-atomic particle (proton)
- Atom (iron atom)
- Meteors (group of atoms)

Now in the case of the first two we know what will happen, as we have observed it in collision tests, these things start to interact and spray.

But for the nano-scale meteors at higher velocities we don't really know what happens. They can collide with more atmospheric nuclei at once, absorb friction, internal sputtering, burning, burst in multiple parts, melting, miniature nuclear explosions (link)...

Depending on the size, they migh reach a break-point were they are the omg ultra-high-energy-particles that are 10^20 eV. The difference between them and normal collisions of 10^9 eV, is 100.000.000.000 eV, this might be an indication for a chain-reaction at a sub-atomic level.



You need to measure the size of the incoming meteorite, number of atoms, composition materials, shock-absorbency and velocity. So one might explode, while an other might just brakes in 2 pieces or starts to melt and burn. A lot of different factors play a role during such collisions.

[Stephen]

Ivan, please stay positive and don't let the fear get to you. Somewhere in the back of your mind you already know that we are not going to die, but you can't help but being frightened at times. It's natural, and many of us know exactly how you feel. You need to stay strong, and not freak out over every new theory you hear about. It might be difficult at first, but you are strong enough to do it.

[CharmQuark]

Ivan

I totally agree with Stephen, being scared is a very hard thing to put behind you, but it can be done and when you do it's amazing I think personally you have a long road ahead of you but just remember you have real friends here ones that can help you through this so you can come out the other side and be happy again, please stay strong bad days are hard to cope with but just remember for every bad day there is always a good day. take care of you Ivan why don't you tell us how your new job is going take your mind off things

[Mailo]

@MagneticTrap: The answer to your riddle is rather easy. Imagine you look through a microscope at some object on the slide. Then someone suddenly bumps against the table, and the object disappears. Would you assume that a micro black hole just ate your object? No, of course not. Same thing happened here. The observation methods are focussed at the spot where the BEC forms. If you add 1/100th of the energy of a candle flame into the BEC, it will immediately disperse, and to the observer the atoms will have "disappeared".
Sidenote: What's a baryon-lepton annihilation? A baryon hits a lepton and both annihilate? If you can prove that, you got the next Nobel prize for sure ...

For an Atom to become Bosonic all it's parts have to become bosons, so it is no longer the same configuration internally, and thus it is no longer an atom. For a group of atoms to become bosonic, all the atoms in the group need to loose their atomic properties so it is no longer a group of atoms.

What is a "bosonic" atom? If you meant "a boson", the quoted paragraph is simply wrong. An atom is either a boson, or not. Helium-4 is a boson, whether in gaseous, liquid or BEC form, Helium-3 is not a boson but a fermion and will never turn into a boson (unless you ionize it).

I also agree that it is very easy to get scared when people either out of ignorance or malice take concepts of physics, twist them beyond recognition, mix them up with other totally unrelated concepts and claim they know something noone else does, and it will kill us all.

Sometimes I wonder why people don't do the same with medicine ...
"Doc, I know you told me I need to have open heart surgery because of my heart condition, but I read something a guy with no education whatsoever in medicine wrote on some blog, and he said I need to stick a fork in my eye to get better. So I'll do that, and sue you until you're not allowed to practice medicine anymore."