The Atlas Experiment and the Large Hadron Collider
September 9, 2008
ATLAS instrument (Large Hadron Collider), courtesy University of Michigan
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, involving over eight thousand physicists from over eighty-five countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. University of Michigan physicists and students were heavily involved in designing and building major components of ATLAS instrument which is one of two main particle detectors in the LHC. In Michigan integral to world’s largest physics experiment, the UM relates that tomorrow:
After 20 years of construction, a machine that could either verify or nullify the prevailing theory of particle physics is about to begin its mission.
CERN’s epic Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project currently involves 25 University of Michigan physicists and students. More than 100 U-M researchers have been involved in the project over the years. CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research, located in Geneva, Switzerland.
…The collider will, in essence, recreate the conditions of the earliest universe. It will tear apart particles so physicists can study their components and observe as the particles put themselves back together.
You can see the Atlas being built in this video and also take a video tour of the LHC on YouTube. There’s some cool large photos at the Boston Globe. For more photos of Atlas and other components of the LHC, visit the official LHC web site and (highly recommended) The Atlas Experiment, where you can see movies, watch webcams, read about the experiment and even check out a virtual tour of the Atlas instrument.
When writing about the LHC, it’s pretty much required that you note concerns about the safety of the experiment, and then say that the chances are infinitesimal (1 in 50,000,000 or less) that Earth-devouring black holes, strangelets or quantum gates will be created.
You’ll be able to tune into a live webcast of the Large Hadron Collider almost certainly not destroying the world at 4 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
