Talk:Large Hadron Collider/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions about Large Hadron Collider. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 4

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LSAG Report is out!

All, the LSAG safety report has been published and is now accessible:

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html (Summary)
http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/LSAG-Report.pdf (Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions)
http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/CERN-PH-TH_2008-025.pdf (Official Report)

This info needs to be added to the article. --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, the report in the NY Times (mostly on the same subject) indicates that the first collisions are now expected in about two months after the first beam, which is now expected in August:

D. Overbye, New York Times June 21, 2008.

This would then be in October, roughly four months hence. Regards, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 03:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Please provide references to support the following conclusion from the Safety report: “cosmic rays do not produce such black holes, and hence neither will the LHC”

I thought the safety report provided reasonable evidence that cosmic ray impacts do not produce dangerous black holes.

However I could not find any scientific support for the statement "hence neither will the LHC". Could someone please provide strong references that would support the assertion that when a high energy cosmic ray particle impacts Earth or a Neutron star that this would necessarily create the same conditions as colliding thousands of anti-matter particles head on against thousands of matter particles with exactly opposing momentums and powerful magnetic fields focusing the energy? Without strong support for that assertion, and I could not find any, the report would only prove the safety of cosmic rays, not the safety of LHC? --Jtankers (talk) 10:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The LSAG report, as a carefully-prepared scientific document, is such a source. Presumably their reasoning had to do with a basic understanding of kinematics and special relativity, but it is not for me as a Wikipedian to derive the details. It is also not for you, at least not here on Wikipedia, to nitpick at the details of reliable sources.

Also, have you read the full report? -- SCZenz (talk) 13:08, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I am still studying the full 96 page report. The report is largely based on the requirement/assumption that a direct correlation exists between the results of cosmic ray impacts and the results of collider impacts, but scientific support for this assumption does not appear to be directly addressed in the report, and it was not immediately clear which of the 119 references might directly support such a correlation between cosmic ray impact results and results of planned collision conditions at LHC. Since this is a primary requirement of the report, I believe that clear and concise support for this requirement/assumption should be directly referenced. --Jtankers (talk) 16:27, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

If this is a personal interest, I suggest you learn about relativistic kinematics and Lorentz transformations. A good textbook on special relativity should suffice. The point is that a ~10^17 eV cosmic ray proton hitting a proton in the atmosphere is the same, in the rest frame of the collision, as the LHC collision between two 7*10^12 eV protons. -- SCZenz (talk) 17:00, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

It is original research, and against Wikipedia policy, for our editors to personally identify problems with a source and attempt to qualify it in the manner you describe. (Also, please try not to edit your comments after others have replied. I imagine you were working while I was replying, but you should still have gotten a warning that the page has changed while you were editing.) -- SCZenz (talk) 17:07, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

We were editing at the same time, did not mean to edit after your response. --Jtankers (talk) 17:10, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi Jtankers (talk), One thing I think you (and possibly others) may not be clear about, but which is well-known to people who have worked at all in elementary particle physics, is that these interactions between particles really do occur one particle (pair) at a time, independently. It is even stronger than that, because the proton is made of three quarks: uud, and the collision will actually just be between two quarks, one from each beam (? or I guess a quark-gluon collision? Not sure about that...). The relativity comes in because it means the individual collisions are actually causally disconnected from each other. This has been well understood since the "parton" analysis of the deep inelastic scattering results at SLAC in the late 1960s really established the physical reality of quarks.

Since the collisions occur one at a time, the "thousand of particles" issue comes in only statistically, not as a coherent, many particle effect. Even in a neutron star, we have single particles interacting, one at a time, in a vacuum environment. Thus the only energy we have to think about is 14 TeV, worst case for a pair of protons, and even that is too much because the energy is distributed among several quarks and gluons. This explanation cannot be put into the article, because it is OR (though I believe quite well-known to people in the field), but I hope it may at least ameliorate some of what I think are truly needless anxieties you and others may have. Best, Wwheaton (talk) 18:34, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Wwheaton, two causally disconnected events can nonetheless give rise to a (catastrophic) event which is causally downstream of both. It seems to me that is the main issue. Also, it is incorrect to argue that, since two interactions are causally disconnected, they "happen one at a time".. the very fact that they are causally disconnected means that there exists a frame of reference in which they happen at the same time. Further, (after you choose a frame of reference), the closer two events are in time, the *more likely* they are to be causally disconnected, since a signal from the earlier one has less time to reach the position of the later. Zargulon (talk) 17:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I have answered this comment on Talk:Safety of the Large Hadron Collider, and copied the two preceding posts over there for context. The gist of it is that collective effects are unimportant (as eg, interactions of any possible product 14 TeV micro-BHs), because gravity is negligibly weak in the particle physics context. Wwheaton (talk) 20:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Reducing Safety Concerns foot print of Main Article

I remind other editors of my call for this safety discussion, and much of the related material in the article, to be removed to a separate article. I would propose Controversy concerning the safety of the Large Hadron Collider as a title in the absence of other suggestions, though this is of course negotiable as long as reasonable NPOV is preserved. If some agreement cannot be reached among us about this issue, I would expect to ask for external advice and dispute resolution before too much further time has elapsed. Regards, Bill Wwheaton (talk) 03:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

To be honest I would hangfire on the extra article, been 5 days now since the court case in Hawaii started but I've heard and read nothing about it so far. Any news? ^Khukri 07:11, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, the article needs some cleaning up in the "Safety concerns" section to address WP:UNDUE, WP:OR and WP:SS, which would substantially reduce it's length to two or three paragraphs. --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:32, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I strongly oppose the article being reduced to remove safety concerns that are well referenced, balanced and of strong public interest. --Jtankers (talk) 10:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I would like to see less emphasis on the safety concerns. The safety report has been published and there have been no mistakes or errors to be found in it. TALIESIN AP (talk) 21:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Most of the safety material has been removed and placed in a separate article, Safety of the Large Hadron Collider. Discussion of the safety issues should be taken there. Of course the material (on both sides) will have to satisfy the usual original research, reliable sources, and verifiability rules, as well as neutral point of view, but at least the discussion itself does not threaten to unbalance this article in that limited context. I think the safety question is interesting and notable on its own due to the intrinsic interest of the survival of the planet, and I hope we can have a good article there and a reasonable discussion. Thanks to Phenylalanine (talk) for doing all the work on this. Wwheaton (talk) 22:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

RHIC

The first thing we can remove is about a paragraph worth of material on RHIC. We don't need to rely on the studies done for it, nor do we need to waste time arguing why those studies are inapplicable. This article is about the LHC, and with the LSAG report, there is now more than enough material specifically in regard to the LHC. Any objections? -- SCZenz (talk) 16:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. --Jtankers (talk) 17:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

As a physicist myself I can but wonder when are people going to realise that the safety concerns section is, to 99.9% of readers of Wikipedia, by far the most important section, if not the only section of any importance, of this article? The tiny minority of the population who are actually physicists seem to have an unjustified and self-righteous desire to edit out content, which should essentially be the domain of experts in humanity, probability and health and safety. History has shown again and again that some of the most disastrous of actions are carried out with the best of intentions. The discipline of physics requires the physicist to be capable of focussing on the issue at hand to the total exclusion of all else, with the consequence that physicists are among the most insular, self-absorbed people in The World and prone to being unable to see the trees for the wood. As such it is essential to engage the checks and balances of the non-physics community to assess the safety or otherwise of projects such as this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.136.57 (talk) 23:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of relocating (User:84.13.136.57)'s post above, as it is our custom to place comments at the bottom of the thread. Apologies for any resulting confusion.

To the point of the comment itself, much of what you say is beyond dispute, yet the topic of the safety article is essentially different than that of the LHC article. Neither can be well-treated when the two are forced into one box together. I do not see how having a dedicated article on the controversy diminishes it, or makes it less accessible than it would otherwise be, especially since the link is there in the LHC physics article. As was said earlier, we do not inflict the Intelligent design controversy on the biolgical article on the Theory of Evolution, nor vice versa. It is really a matter of routing readers to what they are looking for, in my opinion.

Nevertheless, the issue is not any one person's to decide. I have made the above argument several times, and not everyone is convinced. The split has happened, but if there is no consensus among the editors, there are Wikipedia procedures to resolve the dispute. The means and process by which such things are resolved is almost as interesting as the physics of the LHC, and arguably more relevant to human survival on this planet, after all! I was thinking of resorting to them myself before another editor stepped in and made the split. So I would not discourage those who are dismayed from pursuing the dispute resolution process, though I myself will be arguing to maintain the status quo . Wwheaton (talk) 02:20, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

First paragraph

This line, very last of the first paragraph: other theorized novel particles that might be produced, and for which searches[4] are planned, include strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles.[5]

huh? Last time I checked, it's not "searches are planned" for strangelets and micro black holes, quite the opposite, "a concern was rised about the possibility of appearing..." So either I am missing somethign or this line doesnt belong here.

Also, There has bee references made about the validity of a certain terrorist that has made large contributions to the project. This person has not yet been verified as legitimate, but certainly is alarm raising if the safety record is in question. Especially it's ability to create micro Black Holes. The magnetic force directs itself against itself in the micron nano-newton envrinment was not mentioned and was the mnain focus of this person's interests in the project. What if this person purposly put a part in the devise that meets this sick & twisted intent? THINK!

Yes, good point. Obviously it would be libellous to mention him by name, but I presume this is who you are referring to. Far Canal (talk) 05:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Take it to the safety article, we can fight about it there. This article is (after much discussion) really for physics and technical discussions about the LHC. Thanks, Wwheaton (talk) 06:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Layman's confusion

From the article: ...physicists not involved in the LHC experiments, published a report updating the 2003 safety review, in which they reaffirmed and extended its conclusions that LHC particle collisions present no danger, stating that "the LHC will do nothing that nature has not done a million times before"

Is there a more intelligible quote that could be used to suggest that the LHC is safe that does not sound silly when taken out of context like this one does? Its like saying, "Well nature makes black holes all the time, so it must be safe to make one on Earth." I know the LHC is supposed to be safe but this statement (nature had done it a million times) actually makes it sound LIKE IT IS NOT SAFE.

What I do not like about this statement is that nature does things that could annihilate all life on Earth in areas elsewhere in the galaxy. For instance, just because nature creates gamma bursts in distant sectors of the universe does not mean we would want to recreate them in our solar system where they would disintegrate all planetary matter (not suggesing the LHC would do that, just an example). Annoyed with fanboys (talk) 03:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but the arguments are a bit long and complex (and there are several cases to consider) so we lately put it all into the separate article Safety of the Large Hadron Collider. The answer to your particular question is basically that cosmic rays with energies ten million times higher than the LHC's paltry seven TeV hit Earth every day, not to mention the Sun and stars. So the problem is here with us on Earth, not remote. If those cosmic-rays cause the Earth, Sun, & stars to disappear, we would notice, so we can say that essentially does not happen. I hope the new article can lay this all out on both sides fairly, in layman's terms, without getting consumed in the dispute. It has just been released from the constraint of being encased in this one, so now it can grow if it needs to. Best, Wwheaton (talk) 08:03, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Having done a little research this morning I can now point to a very succinct (not at all long or complex) overview by CERN on the safety which I find totally compelling. It is at http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/Safety-en.html (and is one of the references in this article on Wiki). The many articles here could do worse than simply expand on that. I too find the scientific report of 2003 confusing as it mixes theory, evidence and experiment together in an odd manner. The CERN article by contrast is well written and straightforward. Its case for safety, as Wwheaton alludes to, can be seen to rest SOLELY upon the fact that the Earth and other large bodies exist at all. IMHO the argument presented is both simple and as, I say, compelling. I recommend it, all 374 words! LookingGlass (talk) 07:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Second Paragraph

Due to semi-protection and the fact that I rarely make edits (I guess i'm not autoconfirmed) I think that the line "When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson" should be changed to might produce the elusive Higgs boson. I don't know anyone familiar with the Higgs mechanism who is willing to be that the LHC will produce the Higgs boson. Actually one of the most exciting things might be if the Higgs isn't found, thus throwing the standard model on it's head. Anyway, if someone see's fit( that can edit this semi protected page) I'd apreciate it. Thanks! Reddawnz (talk) 17:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, it looks as though all the changes I made to this discussion page in order to get my post right brought my edit count over the autoconfirm limit so I went ahead and made the change listed above. Reddawnz (talk) 18:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I must say I think "theorized .... might" is pretty wishy-washy! :) It seems to me just " ... may" or "theorized ... will" ought to be weak enough to cover our collective behinds. It is theorized that the LHC will produce the Higgs—that is a true statement—but of course it goes without saying that any theory can be incorrect. Anyhow, I've restrained my impulse to revert, let's see what others think. Cheers, Wwheaton (talk) 06:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Will, and I will re-add it. The statement is correct, it is theorised that it will find the higgs, as it's one of its primary functions. Whether it does so or not is another matter. ^Khukri 07:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

That's because it is wishy washy weather or not it will be found. One of it's primary functions is to search for the higgs but there is no certanty what so ever that it will be found. Maybe something as "theorized...might" is a little too wishy washy but will is a bit too strong. It is also theorized that it'll create a strangelet and turn the earth into a giant strangelet blob. It is also theorized that it could create a black hole that will swallow the earth, however, it might be prudent to put some more emphasis on the fact that no one really knows exactly what will be found (or else they wouldn't be doing the experiment)and their are likely scenarios (higgs) and unlikely ones (giant strangelet blob, earth swallowing black hole). Later on in the same paragraph "theorized... might" is aparently not too wishy washy for strangelets, black holes, etc. I simply feel that you need not show bias to one particular theory. How about something like "has been theorized to provide the best possibility of finding the elusive higgs boson that scientists have ever had" or something to that effect. Anyway, i'll deffer to the judgement of the masses no matter what my personal views are Reddawnz (talk) 18:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)66.83.17.150 (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

One more thought... How about hypothesized instead of theorized? I just don't like "theorized... will" for the belief that an experiment might find a hypothetical particle. Anyway, enough from me already. 66.83.17.150 (talk) 18:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Name removal

repositioned comment from top of page

& I have moved it down to the Technician section below. Will delete this in a few days. Wwheaton (talk) 13:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

An inherited error -- needs checking

I just noticed an error apparent in the last sentence of the "Operational safety" subsection, of the new "Safety issues" section, which I have basically simply copied over from the previous "Technical design" section, which cannot be right. It quotes the beam energy as 2.76 TeV per proton, but that is the right energy for Pb, not for hydrogen. So the 362 MJ beam energy figure may be wrong, or else the particle energy is misquoted as 2.76 TeV and should be 7 TeV, or else the energies are right, but both are for lead, not hydrogen as claimed. It is late here in Calif, so I can't track it down tonight (nor early tomorrow), but maybe someone else can look at it. It has been wrong for a long time I guess, so another day can't make it too much worse. Phooey, Wwheaton (talk) 08:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

You are right, 362 MJ is the beam energy for protons @ 7 TeV, while 2.76 TeV is the energy per nucleon with Pb ions. I edited the section to fix this and some other figures. The beam parameters are:

[table replaced, see below]

~~ions~~	~~bunches~~	~~ions per bunch~~	~~total nucleons in beam~~	energy per nucleon [eV]	total energy [eV]	total energy [J]
~~¹H⁺~~	~~2808~~	~~1.15E11~~	~~3.23E14~~	~~7E12~~	~~2.26E27~~	~~3.62E8~~
~~²⁰⁸Pb⁸²⁺~~	~~592~~	~~7E7~~	~~4.14E10 ?~~	~~2.76E12~~	~~2.38E25 ?~~	~~3.81E6 ?~~

Could please someone double check the numbers?

With regards to the move of the text, I find quite limiting to put this section under Safety issues > Operational safety. The purpose of these numbers is to make more comprehensible what's the amount of energy involved, not to stress the danger linked such high energies. What do you think about it? Perhaps we should remove some of the TNT to make these paragraphs safer? Any other opinion? Cheers, Pac72 (talk) 02:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, great, thanks for clarifying. It looks mostly OK to me assuming the # of ions per bunch is correct, except for the captions: I assume it should be "total nucleons in beam" instead of "nucleons per bunch", and "TeV" should be "eV", obviously. I have changed all those in your table, change it back if I goofed somehow. But also, for the lead, don't we need another factor of 208 in the "total nucleons in beam"? I have not changed your numbers yet, but did add question marks to the ones I think should be 208 times larger. This makes the total beam energy for the lead larger than for the proton case, right? I see the rigidity ( = ion momentum/ion charge) comes out the same for H & Pb, as I guess it should if the magnets are the limiting factor for both modes.

Re the placement, I just thought it would be good to put some more mundane operational issues (not just planetary disasters...) in with the safety section, because it is a lot of energy and the danger of an uncontrolled beam dump is sobering and does has to be dealt with, even if it is not really fearsome. Also it seemed to fit better in the safety section. But I am OK with it in either place. See if anyone else has an opinion, and move it if you like. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 07:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right again, energy were, obviously, in eV and not in TeV. The problem with the table was, indeed, the column "nucleons per bunch": it was meant to be "ions per bunch". I should not edit at 5 AM. The energy figures are correct, I finally managed to verify them here. Here's the table with your corrections:

ions	bunches	ions per bunch	total nucleons in beam	energy per nucleon [eV]	total beam energy [eV]	total beam energy [J]
¹H⁺	2808	1.15E11	3.23E14	7E12	2.26E27	3.62E8
²⁰⁸Pb⁸²⁺	592	7E7	8.62E12	2.76E12	2.38E25	3.81E6

I understand your purpose about the tricky safety section, I'll stay at the window for a bit. Ciao, Pac72 (talk) 20:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again. Looks good now. Bill Wwheaton (talk) 21:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Information regarding composition of CERN's LSAG and SPC

(User:Oldnoah) (User Talk:Oldnoah) has added an important piece of information to the Safety concerns section, suggesting that the new LSAG report was far from independent. No references have yet been supplied in support of this material (further edits appear to be in progress), but as it is of high importance I suggest it be retained for a short time so that Oldnoah can supply sources. Wwheaton (talk) 19:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, I just realized I am on the LHC discussion page, not the Safety page. Can we please move this material over there? At least for the moment, that is where it belongss. Thanks. Wwheaton (talk) 19:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed it, as the second statement was not supported by any sources, and the first part I removed as the link given did not describe how or who appointed the review committee. ^Khukri 21:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Why has oldnoah re-added that (a CERN employee, and a person chosen by CERN) were the only authors of the article, when I see John Ellis, Gian Giudice, Michelangelo Mangano, Igor Tkachev(**) and Urs Wiedemann in the article title? ^Khukri 17:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps he is referring to CERN-PH-TH/2008-25, Astrophysical Implications of Hypothetical Stable TeV-scale Black Holes, by Giddings & Mangano? This is a major tome (~96 pages) going into the possibilities at some length, considering the number of large (up to 0.1 mm) compactified dimensions from 5 to 7 (plus the 4 usual ones I think). Basic conclusion is that in all cases, such eventualities would lead to UHE cosmic rays producing BHs that would stop in neutron stars and destroy them in a time short compared to observational limits. They do thank a long series of people (p53 or p54, before appendices) for discussions and advice. It will clearly take some time to digest this, so I would look for criticism from reliable sources before taking it as gospel, but my impression is they have done a good job as far as I am competent to judge (ie, not very). At least they have posted the details for people to shoot down if they can. Wwheaton (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Technician

What value is there in providing the name of the technician who died? I'm not sure exactly what the guidelines say around this point, but his name seems pretty irrelevant to the article. When the name is inserted with a comment to the effect that he's at least as important as Einstein and Hawking, I question the motivations for including it.

No-one is suggesting the technician wasn't important, but without doubt, he's not notable. Let's not turn articles into shrines. Will we also be including something to the effect that he'll be survived by a wife and six loving children? -- Mark Chovain 02:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion above when it was removed. ^Khukri 07:32, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

What are people's thoughts on what we should do: remove it? keep it? write a poem? -- Mark Chovain 11:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally I don't think it should be there, as his name in itself does not add anything to the article. Seeing the edit summary comment reminded me of Fight Club "His name is Robert Paulson" and agree with your shrine comment. I think it is notable that there was a death, but his name I don't think so. On a side note it is also incorrect, even though the link says so, it was not a crane load dropped, it was a top heavy switchgear being moved into place that toppled over. ^Khukri 13:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree it contributes nothing, though I have not felt strongly enough to remove it. In a typical news story (here in the US) about a meaningless accident we do not give names unless it is in a local newspaper (where readers might know the person involved) or there are special circumstances involved (such as heroism or inspiring devotion to duty) that make the person notable. Of course everyone is important in some deep mysterious cosmic way, but not everyone is notable—they are different concepts. Anyhow, I would not argue about this further, either way. Wwheaton (talk) 19:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, in principle I actually oppose giving the name, only not strongly enough to take it upon myself to revert. Though theoretically it should not matter, yet if any editor here knew Mr. Lages, I would defer to his preference instantly, simply out of consideration for the feelings of those present. We need to respect one another's feelings as much as we can, after all. Wwheaton (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's stop putting the name back in without discussion, shall we? Khukri, Wwheaton and I have all expressed opposition to its inclusion. This is not a vote, but with absolutely no argument for its inclusion, this will be going to ANI if it happens again. -- Mark Chovain 22:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I've merged this from the "Name removal" section, as it covers the same ground, and it seems better not to have it scattered about. I have nothing to add about the issue itself. Wwheaton (talk) 13:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Why is the full name of the killed technician shown in the article? It constitutes personal information which could potentially be used maliciously by others. Furthermore, it adds nothing to the statement that a technician has been killed. The technician should be remembered for his efforts in building the LHC, but this is certainly not the way to do so. This is not a memorial and can't serve as such. I've removed the name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.0.192.40 (talk • contribs) 13:59, 29 June 2008

I think you are exaggerating the problems caused by having his name in the article, when it was in most french/swiss papers and easy to find elsewhere. But in saying that it doesn't add anything to the article so can stay as. ^Khukri 07:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

There appears to be a standard that construction death names, unless notable in themselves such as with Hoover_dam#Construction_deaths, (or military action deaths, such as with Vietnam_War_casualties), may tend to be available in referenced articles about the deaths. --Jtankers (talk) 09:38, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

It is. ^Khukri 09:49, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Remove satanic nonesense please?

I've been a registrated user for quite a while but for some reason I'm not able to edit this page, so could someone else please remove the following from the popular culture section?:

 The Large Hadron Collider is a demonic invention. On its start it will inevietably create a portal to
 the parallel dimension which will bring the Dark Lord Belzebub into our world.

(btw, does anyone know why I can't edit the article?)

Sune (talk) 11:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC) Cryo, 2008-08-11

It's gone. I've no idea why you can't edit the article, though. (It's semi-protected, but that shouldn't matter.) -- BenRG (talk) 11:32, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

LHC in Popular Culture

Who wants this section deleted? Raise your hands.

~~Remove~~ per Wikipedia:Trivia sections. --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC) As long as it stays short and sweet, I'm ok with it. --Phenylalanine (talk) 23:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
I want most of it gone. The role in the Da Vinci Code is notable, and was acknowledged on CERN's own webpages for a while; being featured in a webcomic isn't. -- SCZenz (talk) 06:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
- Actually it had a large role in "Angels and Demons", Brown's other novel. It was not featured in Da Vinci Code. It'll also be featured prominently in the upcoming film adaptation by Howard, so it's worth noting.Kbeat (talk) 20:23, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything in it I would shed tears to see removed. Wwheaton (talk) 04:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think it needs to be expanded, the writer left out the movie the Mist is a take on this experiment, in which a secret under ground lab powered one of these things up and accidentally punched a hole into another dimension which then spilled out into our own. This is a possibility of this thing messing up. I think it should be added. 6r3yf0x (talk) 14:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
- But the secret lab was not CERN, the experiment was not the LHC, and the LHC won't punch holes into other dimensions, so not really grounds to include it in this article, sorry. ^Khukri 14:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Application?

I would like to see a section on how the research done at the LHC will be applied, either in industry or even just a description of some of the experiments that will take place besides simply the search for exotic matter (particle accelerators are used for a whole lot of other research purposes and I have a hunch that simply being the biggest one out there won't exclude LHC from other research) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.229.96 (talk) 04:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is unlikely that concrete applications will come soon enough to foresee now; in the past century or two applications of fundamental advances in physics have typically taken a generation or more to bear fruit. But we could do a better job describing the specific experiments. I think the main thrust at first will be simply to inventory and describe the particles that emerge from these collisions, and the reactions that occur among them. What are the masses and quantum numbers of the particle states produced, certainly, and what does that tell us about the dynamics, the force laws, between them? Many possible theories will surely be ruled out, but there is no guarantee that what survives will be anything we "expect" today. Putting this into language non-experts can understand is a good challenge for the experimenters and theorists, and the writers of the next generation of books. A pretty poor answer: sorry I can't be more specific. Wwheaton (talk) 05:48, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Media links

I had these links in my favorites, they may be of use:

--Phenylalanine (talk) 00:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

The Universe Today article is very interesting. It seems to say that creation of black holes is very unlikely, and that they are unlikely to stick around and suck in the Earth. If that's the case, where on Earth did anybody get the misconception that this project is entirely safe? Robfrost (talk) 16:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Usually the fact that we are still around despite constant bombardment by cosmic rays with energies up to eight orders of magnitude higher than those attainable by LHC is used as an pretty convincing argument... --bonzi (talk) 15:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Speed Issues

The article claims that it takes less than 90 microseconds for a particle to whip around this thing, 17 miles of tunnel. When you do the math, it comes out as being faster than the speed of light. I don't think the LHC is quite that impressive! Furthermore, it claims "less than" 90 microseconds, so the speed is even faster! RobertDahlstrom (talk) 01:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Not quite right, CERN gives the tunnel circumference as 26659 m, velocity of light c is exactly 299,792,458 m/s, or 88.92485 µsec to traverse the tunnel. A 7 TeV proton velocity is fractionally only about 1e-8 less than c . Wwheaton (talk) 08:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Layout

I think the lead looks much better with {{TOCright}}, but I couldn't find a good place for {{hadron colliders}}, so I stuck it in see also, which would be fine if there were more articles in the list. Somebody find more article to put in the see also section so we don't have that awful whitespace! --Closedmouth (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me. ^Khukri 16:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Scheduling source

This gives the current best-guess schedule for LHC startup: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/science/29cernrap.html -- SCZenz (talk) 20:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and check out the cool LHC rap video. --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think that link to that video should make its way into "external links" section of the article. I think it does better job at explaining what LHC is all about than most of newspaper articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bonzi (talk • contribs) 16:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Legal challenge to LHC and "satanic theories"

I would like to assert that *some* discussion should be tolerated about the large number of people who view the LHC with a fair degree of trepidation, not to mention the existing court challenge to the project coming from the States. I think it is plain censorship to ban any mention of this from this wiki. I have reverted the deletion of my addition once. I fully expect it to be deleted again so:

~~I WOULD LIKE TO APPEAK FOR ARBITRATION ON THIS MATTER.~~

I feel that this article is entirely one sided and some content regarding the contraversy surrounding the project and growing public anxiety about the project should be included. James Frankcom (talk) 23:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I note that phenylalinine has again deleted the section from the wiki. I have requested arbitration on this matter from a third party. I do not think it is balanced to have no mention about the contraversy surrounding the LHC at all in the article and smacks of "gagging" discussion on the matter. I have reverted the article back for the second time and respectfully request Phenylalinine waits the verdict of a neutral party on this 23:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by James Frankcom (talk • contribs)

Please see Dispute Resolution for details on how to request arbitration, however be aware that the arbitration committee will not be interested until other avenues have been exhausted. You're most likely after Request for Comment, or the Mediation Cabal, not arbitration. -- Mark Chovain 23:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

No I reverted you. You may want to read WP:RS, WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE, WP:REDFLAG, WP:NOR first. You speak of gagging discussion, but you made no effort to discuss your edits prior to re-inclusion, and immediately jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon, while User:Phenylalanine was maybe trying to reply. ^Khukri 23:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: Third opinion is not the right place to take this. It is for disputes involving two editors only. -- Mark Chovain 23:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Editor does not wish to pursue, see. ^Khukri 07:29, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe this image added by James Frankcom should be deleted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cern666.jpg. --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:IFD it I think would be best, if I were to delete it out of hand all sorts of people would start screaming admin abuse. ^Khukri 12:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I thought merely being an admin, and having an opinion was considered admin abuse in these parts ;) -- Mark Chovain 06:20, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I have listed the image for deletion at AFD per Khukri's suggestion. --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:51, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The title of this section is ridiculous. Satanic theories have very little foundation in fact, while the legal challenges are based on the the known fact that the LHC creates circumstances never before created on The Earth and therefore poses an infinitessimally small probability of an infinitely grave consequence. To group together two unrelated claims looks like an attempt to muddy the waters and damage the credibility of the genuine concerns. Robfrost (talk) 16:15, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I've moved your comment so that it is in date order, to make its context clearer. This talk section was first added by James Frankcom (talk) at 23:17 on 31 July 2008 (see here) and, at the time, it was a suitable title because his edits included references to "satanic theories" (for example, this). His first post at the top, struck out (as he changed his mind). The discussion has moved on since then, and this section is only a record of the discussion at the time. Nobody is trying to "muddy the waters" here. You're confusing the issue by adding to this section. If you have a concern about the way that safety is treated in the article as it stands (rather than a historical section of this talk page), it would probably be clearer to start a new section by clicking the relevant tab at the top of the page. Maccy69 (talk) 20:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

I would also like to add my 2 cents, came to this page sole purpose of finding information on the legal case, a link to another page or even a small not stating the fact there is a legal case should be appropriate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.7.134.253 (talk) 16:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Read the article, the legal challenges are mentioned in the Safety of particle collisions section, with a link to a more detailed article on safety, which has a section entitled Legal challenge. The only thing that has been removed is reference to "satanic theories", which is appropriate, I think. Maccy69 (talk) 19:22, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

For details of the edit that removed the satanic theories see this - details of the legal case remain in the article. Maccy69 (talk) 19:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Guys, I've semi-protected the page again for 2 months due to the the puerile hard-on vandals again. If anyone wishes to add anything that is affected by this please add it below and someone will add it in for you. If anyone objects let me know. ^Khukri 07:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Khukri, I think we're being a bit quick to protect the page. I've seen an equal number of good edits than bad edits by unregistered users, e.g. correcting spelling mistakes, typos and even reverting vandalism :-). --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

OK removed it. ^Khukri 11:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Bad idea to remove it. Mashtato (talk) 20:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not puerile, it's funny. Just because Wikipedia is Serious Business doesn't mean you need to get all defensive and wordy. -69.47.186.70 (talk) 05:06, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not funny, it's moronic and childish. --Closedmouth (talk) 15:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

The hard-on talk has been back on 8/6/08. probably a good idea to protect the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.13.63.122 (talk) 19:24, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I reckon it's time for sprot, and move-prot. Judging by the range of IPs, and auto-confirmed users, I suspect one of the usual troll sites is behind the latest push. sprot won't stop the auto-confirmed trolls from vandalising, but they'd be losing their accounts for nothing. -- Mark Chovain 21:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Woops - Just realised it's already been protected. -- Mark Chovain 21:57, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Explosion at LHC

Why has this article been rated Low on the importance scale on Wikiproject Europe? One would think that experiments to be carried out on the LHC to discover the Higgs boson and potentially leading to the Theory of Everything would be highly important, not just to Europe but the world. OlEnglish (talk) 22:52, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Probobly beacuse these experiments concern only scientists and most of Europe is not interested. And then again, the latest accelerator was also supposed to be groundbreaking and wasn't... :/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.205.81.146 (talk) 19:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention it'll make the universe explode! 68.41.145.24 (talk) 12:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Not much left...

http://www.lhcountdown.com/?p=1 About one day and 4 hours until activation.

That page isn't accurate anymore. The latest (rough) schedule from the New York Times is cited in the article. -- SCZenz (talk) 16:54, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

There will be a partial beam injection this weekend, full beam injection around 10th September and the grand unveiling is I think 21st October. ^Khukri 10:23, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi. The article still says it's supposed to start August 7. Is this Aug 2008? Something needs to be updated! Thanks. ~A H 1^(TCU) 17:51, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Erm? I updated the opening paragraph this morning to "Initial particle beam injections were succesfully carried out between 8-11th August 2008[2][3], the first attempt to circulate a beam through the entire LHC is scheduled for 10 September 2008,[4] and the first high-energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled, on 21 October 2008.[5]", I can't see any mention of the 7th now in the article. cheers ^Khukri 18:09, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Construction accidents and delays

I'd like to change the phrase "a technician was killed in the LHC tunnel when a crane load was accidentally dropped". The unfortunate technician was manipulating a power converter cabinet weighing 1.2 tons and which has a high centre of gravity. It toppled over and trapped him against the wall. It was in a rather confined space far from the surface access and took half an hour for rescuers to release him. It's true that the cabinet had been carried by a crane, but it wasn't at the time when it slipped over so saying that it was "dropped" is not true. Just to add that I'm an engineer working at CERN in the power group and I'd be interested to contribute to the LHC page. Quentin (talk) 17:08, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree and have already said as much previously, though I don't think it requires too much detail also I don't think he was a technician. Just something along the lines of "On 25 October 2005, during the manual manipulation of a top heavy switch gear, a worker was killed when the unit toppled over and trapped him underneath." ^Khukri 09:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it needs to be brief but it should none the less be as accurate as possible. Even this summary is not correct since the cabinet contained a power converter not switch gear and being trapped underneath a unit makes it sound like it fell over completely and trapped him against the floor, when in fact it only toppled over part of the way trapping him against the wall. Quentin (talk) 17:08, 14 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.62.114.43 (talk)