Fascinating Facts about the LHC

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MarkyB
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Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by MarkyB » Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:29 am

Fact 1) When the 27-km long circular tunnel was excavated, between Lake Geneva and the Jura mountain range, the two ends met up to within 1 cm.

Fact 2) Each of the 6000-9000 superconducting filaments of niobium–titanium in the cable produced for the LHC is about 0.007 mm thick, about 10 times thinner than a normal human hair. If you added all the filaments together they would stretch to the Sun and back six times with enough left over for about 150 trips to the Moon.

Fact 3) At the LHC, beam energy will be influenced by the Moon. The absolute collision energy is not a critical issue for the LHC experiments, but the tidal variations will have to be taken into account when the beams are injected into the collider.

Fact 4) All protons accelerated at CERN are obtained from standard hydrogen. Although proton beams at the LHC are very intense, only 2 nanogrammes of hydrogen (as calculated at rest) are accelerated each day. Therefore, it would take the LHC about 1 million years to accelerate 1 gramme of hydrogen.

Fact 5) The central part of the LHC will be the world’s largest fridge. At a temperature colder than deep outer space, it will contain iron, steel and the all important superconducting coils.

Fact 6) The pressure in the beam pipes of the LHC will be about ten times lower than on the Moon. This is an ultrahigh vacuum.

Fact 7) Protons at full energy in the LHC will be travelling at 0.999999991 times the speed of light. Each proton will go round the 27 km ring 11 245 times a second. A beam might circulate for 10 hours, travelling more that 10 billion kilometres, enough to get to the planet Neptune and back again.

Fact 8) At full energy, each of the two proton beams in the LHC will have a total energy equivalent to a 400 tonne train (like the French TGV) travelling at 150 km/h. This is enough energy to melt 500 kg of copper.

Fact 9) In absolute terms, the energies in the LHC, if compared to the energies we deal with everyday, are not impressive. In fact, 1 TeV is about the energy of motion of a flying mosquito. What makes the LHC so extraordinary is that it squeezes energy into a space about a million million times smaller than a mosquito.

Fact 10) In the LHC, under nominal operating conditions, each proton beam has 2808 "bunches", with each bunch containing about 100 billion protons. Bunches of particles measure a few centimetres long and a millimetre wide when they are far from a collision point. However, as they approach the collision points, they are squeezed to about 16 micrometres (a human hair is about 50 micrometres thick) to allow for a greater chance of proton-proton collisions.

Fact 11) When the bunches cross, there will be a maximum of about 20 collisions between 200 billion particles. Bunches will cross on average about 30 million times per second, so the LHC will generate up to 600 million particle collisions per second.

Fact 12) The Sun never sets on the ATLAS collaboration. Scientists working on the experiment come from every continent in the world, except Antarctica.

Fact 13) The CMS magnet system contains about 10 000 tonnes of iron, which is more iron than in the Eiffel Tower.

Fact 14) The data recorded by each of the big experiments at the LHC will be enough to fill around 100 000 dual layer single-sided DVDs every year.

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Xymox
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by Xymox » Sun Nov 29, 2009 2:45 am

AWESOME...

I have placed this post as a sticky. It will stay at the top for everybody to see.

You have earned your Guru title... Let me go add it...

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photino
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by photino » Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:34 pm

One of my favourite facts:

Remember how metal contracts as it gets colder? When the LHC is cooled down, each sector shrinks by about 10 metres in length. This means the entire ring shrinks by 80m! (almost the length of a football field). (This change has to be absorbed - thats why components are joined together by bellows and electrical connections are made by a system of sliding fingers (PIM)).

gven45
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by gven45 » Fri Aug 05, 2011 6:24 am

So why is that surprising?
Wind your BMW up to about 300km/hr and hit a brick wall.
Are their more onarimcilar and smaller pieces than when you hit
that same wall at 160km/hr?

Yes.
Last edited by gven45 on Wed May 22, 2013 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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CharmQuark
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by CharmQuark » Wed Sep 14, 2011 3:10 am

I love this can't believe I have never seen it before LOL :wtf:

my fav Fact 12) The Sun never sets on the ATLAS collaboration. Scientists working on the experiment come from every continent in the world, except Antarctica. :Heart:
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted with large ones either by Albert Einstein.

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Tau
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by Tau » Sat Sep 17, 2011 2:25 pm

My personal favorite facts:
  • The tube is 26659.883 m long. But, this differs about 1 mm with the phase of the moon. And that is enough to compensate for, as stated before.
  • The driver frequency of the RF is 400.789 MHz. When ramping from injection energy to the 3.5 TeV, this has to be increased by only 1 kHz (0.001 MHz) to compensate for the higher speed of the particles.
  • Also, during a fill, the frequency is tweaked by even smaller amounts, normally less than 10 Hz. (that's 0.000002%)
  • The time is recorded with 6 digits behind the comma. If a clock is as little as a millisecond off, this can cause a beam dump.
In other words, they have a different idea of "precision" as most people. If I measure the height of my ceiling, I find it impossible to do this with 1 mm accuracy. :?
- Tau

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CharmQuark
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by CharmQuark » Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:49 pm

Second fav fact :think:

Fact 10) In the LHC, under nominal operating conditions, each proton beam has 2808 "bunches", with each bunch containing about 100 billion protons. Bunches of particles measure a few centimetres long and a millimetre wide when they are far from a collision point. However, as they approach the collision points, they are squeezed to about 16 micrometres (a human hair is about 50 micrometres thick) to allow for a greater chance of proton-proton collisions.

Tau :crazy: you can come and try to measure my house if you like, see if that will bring any luck :thumbup: bring the wife and kids too we will have a party!! :scared-yipes:
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted with large ones either by Albert Einstein.

dannalwemy
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by dannalwemy » Sun Jun 02, 2013 7:13 am

Indeed fascinating. Great to be a part of this forum.

david78888
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by david78888 » Tue Jul 23, 2013 5:53 am

Nice surprise about this shorter form. Can you tell us what it is you are talking/writing about?Has any info. about this shorter form been posted before (and i just missed it)?
David

kenziedfisk
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by kenziedfisk » Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:59 am

Amazing facts I may say!!! :) Great to know about this.

shilpi
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by shilpi » Tue Dec 03, 2013 7:50 am

Hi,

In one of the above posts, Tau mentions the following:
The driver frequency of the RF is 400.789 MHz.

I just wanted to understand that it is not the integral number (400 MHz exactly) so that the slowly moving
protons in the same bunch can attain the same energy as the faster moving ones?
or is there something else?

Thanks,
Shilpi

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CharmQuark
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by CharmQuark » Sun Jan 19, 2014 3:35 pm

Welcome to the happy house Sean ;)

Great to have you with us.

CQ
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted with large ones either by Albert Einstein.

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Tau 2
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by Tau 2 » Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:30 am

shilpi wrote:I just wanted to understand that it is not the integral number (400 MHz exactly) so that the slowly moving
protons in the same bunch can attain the same energy as the faster moving ones?
The frequency is determined by the length of the ring, particle speed, and the number of the "buckets".
None of these change much, (particle speed a little bit and ring length a very little bit), so the frequency is almost constant.
The particles that are fast or slow are pushed by the RF, indeed, but the frequency doesn't have to change for that.
There is a lot of theory behind this, all details (too many probably) are in "accelerators for pedestrians".
- Tau

RomsMaklaet
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Re: Fascinating Facts about the LHC

Post by RomsMaklaet » Wed Sep 30, 2015 4:02 am

Nice surprise about this shorter form.
บาคาร่าออนไลน์

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