The LHC -- What Good Is It

The latest from David Overbye (NY Times), explaining why the Large Hadron Collider is important:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/science/29essa.html?_r=1

No Backup Plan?

If the Large Hadron Collider DOESN'T find the Higgs Boson, physics will go back to the drawing board:

http://tinyurl.com/yafhpqc

"a hundred years of scientific theory" and "the Standard Model" will be "undermined" if the LHC fails to confirm the Higgs, resulting in bitterness and infighting among the physics community, according to former Harvard professor Shahriar Afshar.

The LHC Proceeds

Old news (...well, 4-day old news anyway), but the NY Times' Dennis Overbye reports on the new record finally set by CERN's Large Hadron Collider here (much more to come):

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/science/10collide.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=science


Still, the success is limited, as Overbye notes:

"Testing revealed that the collider is riddled with thousands of defective electrical joints and dozens of underperforming magnets that will keep it from reaching its full potential until an overhaul scheduled for 2011. When it starts doing real physics after the holidays, the collider will be running at half power."

LHC Restart Begins Tonight!

 The Large Hadron Collider, under repair and preparation for the last 14 months since it's initial startup shutdown, is finally due to re-startup tonight (the beginning of a lengthy process):

http://tinyurl.com/y8ulct7

"...craziness has a fine history in physics"

...so says a NY Times piece on the start-up attempts for the Large Hadron Collider, and a new theory pushed by some that the device is doomed or at least jinxed, by the very Higgs boson for which it is searching... this is cosmology gone wild... but, hey, that's almost the normal state for cosmology, so read all about it:

http://tinyurl.com/yhh7b6d

Was It Whole Wheat

A bird with some bread shut down the hapless LHC if this story is to be believed:

http://tinyurl.com/yezw36a

The LHC's Bad Start

Physicist Brian Cox gives a short TED Talk explanation of what went wrong with last year's run of the Large Hadron Collider (...gotta love an English accent):

Fear and Loathing and the LHC

The odd fears created by the Large Hadron Collider covered again here:

http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2009/05/the_lhc_black_holes_and_you.php

And more on the eventual new start-up of the LHC here:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/04/30/lhc-restart/

Large Hadron Collider

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), out of commission since a failing during its maiden run last September will try again next fall to reveal secrets of the Universe to awaiting physicists (...that would be as opposed to creating a mini black hole that sucks us all into its bowels). Article HERE.