"Red Button Day" Set at LHC
The exact meaning of this date is open to some debate, however. For example, this weekend CERN is testing the equipment by running particle beams through some sectors of the system. And, even on September 10, the beam will not be up to full strength ... it will have an energy of only about 450 GeV (GeV = billion electron volts), well below the main energy of 14 TeV (TeV = trillion electron volts) which won't be reached until 2009 or, possibly, 2010.
Still, September 10 is the day when the big media events related to the LHC start-up are scheduled. One of the biggest media events will take place on BBC Radio 4, which will broadcast on-site from CERN and have a special radio episode of the BBC (and BBC America) sci-fi hit Torchwood.
This won't be the last hoorah for the LHC ... back in February, CERN set up the LHC's official coming out party for international dignitaries as October 21, when it was still very uncertain what date beams would be going through the accelerator. Fortunately, the beam seems like it will make it in time for the party, when politicians from around Europe will pat themselves on the back for achieving such a grand feat.
In the meantime, of course, the FermiLab team does everything in their power to hunt for the Higgs, hoping to make some significant breakthrough before the LHC begins working in energy ranges that are inaccessible to the soon-to-be number 2 particle accelerator in the world. This theoretical timeline of the LHC progress through energy levels shows some of the anticipated milestones.
Comments
When politicians are patting themselves on their backs some of us will be looking in dismay. Have you read Professor Dr. Otto Rossler’s plea to the world?
“A nightmarish situation, that can still be hoped to be averted in time through communication within the scientific community, is drawn attention to. Only a few weeks remain to find out whether the danger is real or nothing but a mirage. After this time window is closed, it will take years until we know whether or not we are doomed. The story line has all the features of a best-selling novel. The reader is asked to contribute constructively.”
Quote from Dr. Otto E. Rossler, Professor Theoretical Biochemist, visiting Professor of Theoretical Physics, inventor of the Rossler Attractor, founder of Endophysics, winner of the 2003 Chaos Award of the University of Liege and the 2003 Rene Descartes Award.
Links to Dr. Rossler’s concerns available at lhcfacts.org
JTankers, we are all so sick of your pathetic paranoid drivel. We all see your mental-midget hysterical screaming comments on every site that mentions the LHC. When the LHC goes online, and nothing bad happens (and nothing bad WILL happen), I hope you and your publicity hound idiot pal Walter Wagner have the sense to slink bak into total obscurity. What a couple of ignorant fools you are. No one cares what you two whackjobs have to say.
my name is james and im 16 years old.
i would not like to die because of some idiot in a white suit says. his theory in science is more important the the life of every man woman, child and animal…… what do you find out? how life formed. who cares if you have to risk ending it to find-out
“No one cares what you two whackjobs have to say.”
Well, most of us do care.