Fascinating Facts about the LHC
Posted: 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.
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.