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Crodog
Social climber
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Large Hadron Collider Pauses Protons; Looks Ahead to Lead
November 04, 2010, Paul Preuss
The joint news release that follows is issued by the Department of Energy’s three national laboratories that host U.S. collaborations in experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for ALICE, Brookhaven National Laboratory for ATLAS, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory for CMS.
The LHC has completed many successful months of colliding protons (hydrogen ions) at record-breaking energies and now begins four weeks of colliding much more massive lead ions, giving access to different physical phenomena. ALICE is designed specifically to study these heavy-ion collisions, which give rise to a unique phase of matter, the quark-gluon plasma. Berkeley Lab scientists led development of ALICE’s Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EMCal) component, which enables efficient study of jet quenching, a phenomenon not yet discovered when ALICE was originally designed. Only part of EMCal is in place for this first lead-lead run.
Berkeley Lab is also a major participant in the ATLAS experiment, one of the other LHC experiments that will study lead-lead collisions. ATLAS will capture a broad range of products of the hot, dense medium formed when heavy ions collide.
Batavia, IL, Berkeley, CA and Upton, NY—The Large Hadron Collider’s first record-setting run of high-energy proton collisions ended today, and scientists are now readying the accelerator to meet its next challenge: the world’s highest-energy collisions of lead ions.
“Over the last seven months, the intensity of the LHC’s proton beams has increased 200,000 times, and the scientists from the LHC experiments have quickly converted proton collisions into scientific results,” says Dennis Kovar, Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics at the U.S. Department of Energy. “This is excellent progress for the brand-new accelerator and detectors, and bodes well for discoveries in the years to come.”
The LHC at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland will spend the next month colliding lead ions—atoms of lead with all of their electrons stripped off during the acceleration process. The teams operating three of the four major LHC experiments—ALICE, ATLAS and CMS—will record and analyze data from these record-setting “heavy-ion” collisions, in which up to 10,000 particles will stream from each high-energy collision. This next phase of the LHC will provide the first full test of the capabilities of the ALICE experiment, which was designed specifically to record heavy-ion collision data. The lead-ion collisions will be used to investigate the quark gluon plasma, a state of matter that physicists believe existed millionths of a second after the Big Bang.
“The LHC’s lead-ion collisions may generate temperatures up to 500,000 times hotter than the center of the sun,” said Timothy Hallman, Associate Director of Science for Nuclear Physics at the U.S. Department of Energy. “The LHC experiments’ investigations into how the quark gluon plasma behaves at such temperatures will provide vital insight into why and how quarks and gluons cool from such high temperatures to bind together to form more complex particles and thus how our universe evolved into the form it has today.”
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Science vs Religion vs the Paranormal vs Mystical Spirituality
I used to think before these discussions on ST, that a synthesis of science and spirituality could be reached. Now I believe it is hopeless. The best we can do is see the above as a continuum with the experts leaning one direction or the other while most human beings are seeking a middle path.
If Susan Blackmore gave up research on the paranormal yet continues with both science research and meditation, this ought to tell us that neither science or personal spirituality are totally satisfying for most people. The fact that she uses specifically Buddhist vocabulary even though Buddhism is a religion with a long history of psychic phenomenon, is also a wonderfully ironic demonstration of the same type of bias that she accused her paranormal subjects of engaging in!
That said, I will agree with the scientists that it is not cost effective to continue searching for explanations of paranormal events by the already tried laboratory methods. It is much more useful to understand them within the materialist context of brain scans on the one hand and the humanistic fields of transpersonal psychology and spirituality on the other. The world's spiritual traditions have always taught that such experiences are rare and can not be replicated at will.
Of course this will not end the causation versus corelation debate, but will almost certainly, redefine it. I'm guessing that religion will become more personal, and as man is placed within the context of evolution and nature, more pantheistic.
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WBraun
climber
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“The LHC’s lead-ion collisions may generate temperatures up to 500,000 times hotter than the center of the sun,” said Timothy Hallman,
"MAY generate"
Big mega guess again. Like they've been to the center of the Sun planet and stuck a thermometer in it. Heh heh
Tax the citizens with big expensive machines that cost fortunes and dazzle em with fancy words.
See the poor guys on the street starving to death with no jobs and no food.
But instead we'll give you Gluons and Quarks and maybe a few wars tossed in for good measure to keep the economy going, .... of course, to even farther send us to hell.
Ah yes ..... this wonderful modern life ...... :-)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Werner, STFU, at least on this forum... as the Web came into being at CERN, and the total annual commercial revenue from the web equals the total global amount spent on High Energy Physics over its funding history!
But you have a point, it probably hasn't made life any better...
[edit: do I get to be banned now for dissing Werner?]
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jstan
climber
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Not my area but interesting to think about.
"“The LHC’s lead-ion collisions may generate temperatures up to 500,000 times hotter than the center of the sun,” said Timothy Hallman,"
Temperature is usually thought of in terms of the kinetic energy of the particles present. In the sun the density of ionized particles is so large radiation scattering lengths have to be short. Furthermore gravitational forces have to be high in the center so physical scattering also must be strong. Very hard for energy generated by the atom burning to escape the center of the sun. So temperature, I would think, has meaning and can be calculated approximetely. Mind you atom burning may be occurring via more than one reaction.
Now in the LHC you have individual particles colliding head on but there will be error bars on the precision of that collision. By the nature of the accelerator you will know the center of mass energy and you know momentum and energy are conserved, at least to the extent mass has not been converted to energy in the collision. Presumably there are a number of possible exit products and those will further emit energy with time. But there will not be the intense particle scattering important for the equipartition of energy and the definition of average temperature.
I think temperature is quoted only because it is thought the lay person can understand that. This lay person can't. I would think it would depend upon how you define temperature as a physical quantity in a collider. Interesting.
Edit:
Right.
I had not considered the brief existence of an extended state. That gets us closer to our intuitive concept of "temperature."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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no, there is a formal definition of temperature in these reactions...
it is the kinetic energy of the objects, we measure it from the emitted hadrons, whose momentum perpendicular to the axis the collision takes place along is indicative of the temperature of their constituents, the quarks and gluons.
There are also hydrodynamic effects that take place dumping that much energy into that small a space, as the "phase diagram" up thread indicates...
...the energy comes from getting all that quark-gluon stuff close together, usually the quarks pair with an anti-quark or another pair of quarks to form the hadronic matter which we observe directly. When the energy density of space is sufficiently large, the quarks and gluons form a plasma and exist in an extended state, unconfined.
The critical temperature for that happening is near the pion mass, ~140MeV/c^2
There are other hydrodynamic phenomena that are observed and the experiment ALICE specializes in observing them at the LHC.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Tony, you have a scientific article to refer to that you consider "the gold standard"?
if so, post the reference...
...so far I haven't come up with much beyond the 90s,
And once again, Hyam's criticism of non-accumulating experimental data seems to be borne out as the results of the 80s and 90s fail to be replicated and pass to the dumper...
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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re: "scientific" models (of evil, etc.)
Note one has to be careful with language here. A so-called "scientific" model might mean it is only based on science; it does not necessarily mean it is developed by the science community or by scientists. Big difference.
Someday maybe EVERYONE will get it: Science is not an entire "house" of functions like religion is - answering "what is" and "what matters" and "what works" in the practice of living; it is only a tool concerned with "what is" or "what are."
Don't make science out like it is a full-bodied house - or full-bodied functionality - like religion and then attack it because it isn't, because it doesn't measure up across the full spectrum of human concerns, interests, values, etc.
You don't try to use a hammer to waterski behind and then when it performs miserably as a ski boat attack it as failing the job.
One or two at the Taco consistently put science on the same plane as religion when they are different beasts. They only cross each other's path in regard to giving explanations for how the world works in terms of facts. Science doesn't address issues of "what matters" at all.
(Is it night time in Japan?)
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Crodog
Social climber
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Brain surgery is dangerous
By Kevin Fong, Date: Thursday, October 21 2010
The past month has seen extraordinary scenes; the usually mild- mannered brotherhood of science has taken to the streets in protest at the proposed cuts to science spending. Some 2,000 of them marched on Downing Street, armed with a modified Pink Floyd ditty and a single message for the Chancellor: "Hey. Osborne. Leave our Geeks alone." By all accounts it was an impressive display with luminaries from across the science community and beyond stepping up to the mike to make themselves heard.
Whitehall is no stranger to protest, but this was, in substance, far more than some vaguely coherent rebel yell. These are rational people; rational and logical thought is what they do and so their arguments tend to hold water. Their illustrations of the great benefits of science are unassailable to all but the most obtuse. They go something like this: Just look around you at the modern world and then start to delete any item, or industry, that wouldn't be here if it weren't for some historical, esoteric, scientific musing or other and you rapidly get back to Stone Age standards of living.
That army of scientists and their supporters who took to the streets represents a brilliant body of professionals of which this country should be proud. They are without doubt of immeasurable value to society. And that is part of the problem. Their value is as plain as the nose on any face but it cannot be measured or expressed in terms that the man from the Treasury is prepared to accept.
It is a great shame that the pursuit of science has somehow been painted as a singularly self-indulgent affair; as a disposable luxury that can be set aside now that the economy is tanking. By any measure of academic success, the bang for buck that we get from our research scientists is impressive.
They are first among the G8 nations for the number of scientific publications produced per unit of GDP invested, they are third in the league table of citations per researcher and 90 per cent of all their research output is considered "world class". But when it comes to the public funding of science, as a fraction of GDP, we are outspent by everybody in the G7 group of industrialised nations other than Italy.
In short, the science base is just about as lean and mean as it could possibly be; to subject it to further cuts would be to leave it positively skeletal.
These are clearly times of unprecedented challenge but it is not scientists' lack of effort or productivity that has saddled us with this horrific fiscal deficit. On the contrary, science and innovation, properly resourced and encouraged, could play a significant role in the economy's later salvation. But the current course on which our government appears set conjures a perfect and deadly storm.
In previous years a different kind of deficit preoccupied our ministers: the deficit in the supply of science graduates. The past two decades have seen schoolchildren and undergraduates deserting core science subjects. Politicians struggled to come up with initiatives to try to make science more attractive; among these a broad reaffirmation of the value of science and scientists to our country. But the proposed cuts in science spending send a clear signal to our sixth formers: that a worthy but less well remunerated life, dedicated to the advancement of science and the pursuit of knowledge, is, in the eyes of the government, worth little or nothing at all.
And these are the same prospective undergraduates who will shortly be heavily incentivised to consider, principally, the bankability of their costly degree courses before they choose and embark on them. I cannot help but imagine that they will, for the most part, seek out careers and courses other than science or the teaching of science as a result.
And those brave science graduates, uncowed by the debt mountain, will be left to consider their future prospects. In the row over bankers' bonuses we were constantly reminded that there is a market rate payable for talented individuals; that if sufficient reward cannot be found here then there are other countries in which to settle. Presumably these rules apply to graduate scientists too. Is it not entirely likely that they would consider deserting the UK for sunnier climes; for any one of the overseas economies throughout the world that, in the face of austerity, has chosen to invest in science rather than abandon it? All of this has happened before and, if the cuts go ahead as planned, it will happen again.
It is not hard to convince oneself of the economic value of maintaining science funding even in the face of this recession; indeed several of our global competitors have done just that and chosen to invest. But the arguments that articulate the value of our science base reach beyond its immediate market return. Albert Einstein once taught us that "not everything that counts can be counted". This is a tutorial that the coalition would do well to heed. The proposed changes to higher education and science funding will sit like an airlock in the pipe that supplies the future generation of technologically and scientifically literate graduates upon whom the economy depends.
While the immediate needs of the economy must be served, it is always worth remembering that money doesn't make the world go round without the laws of physics to assist it.
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WBraun
climber
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Ed -- [edit: do I get to be banned now for dissing Werner?]
LOL Hahaha
I still love ya Ed.
I knew I would probably tick you off with those posts of mine up thread although they never were intended at you or anyone personally.
I do support modern science believe it or not, although most of my posts on this form have the "look" and "feel" as NOT.
Really ...... :-)
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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"MAY generate"
Big mega guess again. Like they've been to the center of the Sun planet and stuck a thermometer in it. Heh heh
Tax the citizens with big expensive machines that cost fortunes and dazzle em with fancy words.
See the poor guys on the street starving to death with no jobs and no food.
But instead we'll give you Gluons and Quarks and maybe a few wars tossed in for good measure to keep the economy going, .... of course, to even farther send us to hell.
Ah yes ..... this wonderful modern life ...... :-) And, I'm confident that nobody has EVER counted from 1 to 1 billion, as counting 1 number every second would take ~31.5 years counting NON-STOP, with no sleap, including leap years. Does that mean that the number 1 billion may not exist?
Your are using extremly flawed logic to dismiss something that is fairly well understood (astrophysics).
Werner... I asked you a couple pages back how you attain knowledge and judge it accurate? And to be specific. You can't even articulate anything wityh any substance, can you? It's almost like you have turrets syndrome, dude... Just shouting out nonsense.
And, if they'd finished the Super Conducting Super Collider (SCSC) in Texas, it would be ~3 times the energy of the LHC, and would have employed LOTS of people, with high paying jobs, as well as contributed much to the position of the US scientifically and educationally. They don't seem to be doing too bad in that part of France and Switzerland. We, and the world, lost a HUGE opportunity.
jstan... Atoms are fused, not burned, in the sun. The sun is in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium between the inward pressure of gravity, causuing heat and fusion, releasing energy, which in turn causes radiation (heat, light, radiation) pressure outward... It is in a balance between the two. And, as stars use up their hydrogen fuel, they cool and thus the fusion slows, causing radiation to ebb, gravity crushes it more, heating it up to start fusing helium, which in turn put out more radiation pressure... It keeps going through these cycles of burning larger atoms, usually up to iron, then one of a few endings depending on the mass of the star.
A couple novel facts... A photon created in the core of the sun can take up to ~100,000 years just to reach the surface (a la interactions described by QED), then just 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach us here on earth. And, every second, ~500 million tons of Hydrogen is fused into ~496 million tons of Helium, and the missing ~4 million tons is converted to energy (via E=mc^2). For comparison, the Trinity bomb converted only ~8.5 grams into energy (via E=mc^2, though through fissin not fusion), and that was a LOT of energy (big boom).
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jstan
climber
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I have seen "burning" used colloquially to refer to reactions in a star. They say a star of a particular age and mass is a "silicon burning" star etc.
The physics for the production of transuranic elements is a very active field of study right now, as you know. Fascinating what the satellites are teaching us when coupled with massively distributed processing.
Cosmic ray telescopes. Who would have thought it?
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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You're right... And I say that too. I was being pedantic.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Fructose-
It's 9 am on Saturday Nov 6 over here. Anyone who wants to ponder time and relativity only needs to move to Japan and then try to coordinate with folks in the States.
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WBraun
climber
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Vivasvān the sun-god.
He rules the sun planet, which is controlling all other planets by supplying heat and light.
So Vivasvān can easily explain the temperatures in his house and across the material universe.
Oh wait!
There's no such person says the materialist. Impossible!
We have not measured him yet with our instruments.
In the future we may invent an instrument.
That damn nut case Werner, WTF does he really know?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Oh, good, so you're up in Japan. Sake with your tea?
So food for thought: Earlier you referenced "spiritual traditions." Just a short step from that is "spiritual discipline." Now if I said I practiced a modern "spiritual discipline" that is science based and focused on life guidance and life strategies for better practices in the art of living, could YOU meet me there? -A meeting of the minds? I'm reaching out...
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Science is one beast. My "spiritual discipline" is another. Like a hammer and a water ski boat, they are different.
Science addresses "what is" and (my) spiritual discipline addresses "what is" and "what matters" and "what works" - what I call the "cardinal trinity."
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Fructose-
No problem. It sounds like we've both settled on compartmentalization.
The advantage of following traditional spirituality is that it has dealt for a couple thousand years or more with the sorts of problems likely to be encountered in spiritual practice. Anytime you deal with the human mind, weird things happen.
So far all the brain scans have been of advanced practitioners who were sucessful at the process. It would be really interesting to see scans from people in the midst of the messy intermediate stages, and quite a challenge to come up with scientific labels to get around the traditional angels and demons stuff.
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rrrADAM
Trad climber
LBMF
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Another Sun God, eh, Werner?
What day would one worship a Sun God on? SUNDAY, perhaps?
Remember, the 4th Commandment, about "keeping the Sabbath Holy", refferes to Saturday...
Lots of Sun Gods were popular prior to and after the time of Christ... Then, Constantine, declared Sol Invictus (day of the sun - SUNDAY) the official day of rest in the 4th century(?).
Remember, Jesus is also called "The Light of the World" and "The Light", names used for these very same Solar Dieties at the time, and the same halo depicted on Jesus, is also seen on other Sun Gods like Apollo.
Why? Because, Christianity absorbed many different pagan beliefs into it, and that was applied to Jesus afterwards. Dec 25th... Easter... Virgin birth... Dying, then ressurected after 3 days... Turning water to wine... ALL from pagan beliefs that predate Jesus, and most of them are Sun Gods.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
Full Silos of Iowa
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Jan: Great news!
Just so you know, I draw a bright red line between (a) my spiritual discipline and (b) "religion" esp as practiced in the West because the latter is (1) associated, tightly bound up, with supernaturalist belief and (2) focuses on God Jehovah ("God"). -Whereas the "spiritual discipline" that I practice, as I said above, focuses on life guidance and life strategies in the art of living and does not rely - not one iota - on supernaturalist belief of any kind for anything.
And I might add, unlike science, my "spiritual discipline" is a most excellent support system (or platform) I have found for exploration and discovery, also organization, of "what matters" and "what works" in my practice of living.
Just as it is often helpful to distinguish between skiing and snowboarding language-wise, so too, I have found it helpful both in my own thinking and in conversation with like-minded believers to distinguish between a religion (with its emphasis on God and supernaturalist belief) and a spiritual discipline (with its emphasis on life guidance, life strategies, performance in the art of living, spiritual development, etc.).
Thank you for your reply. Maybe there is hope?
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I wonder if Werner and I might ever have a meeting of the minds? (Even though he's called me a "leg-humper" more than once.) Hmm...
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"Jesus is also called "The Light of the World"
I've always thought it interesting that in the Abrahamic religions "Lucifer" derives from the Latin for Light Bearer. Go figure!
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