It’s the Future Part 11: The Large Hadron Collider

Mind blown visually, mind blown intellectually. Take a gander: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator ...

Mind blown visually, mind blown intellectually. Take a gander:

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle
accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly
set to begin its first particle beam tests. The European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN) is preparing for its first small tests in
early August, leading to a planned full-track test in September – and
the first planned particle collisions before the end of the year. The
final step before starting is the chilling of the entire collider to
-271.25 C (-456.25 F). Here is a collection of photographs from CERN,
showing various stages of completion of the LHC and several of its
larger experiments (some over seven stories tall), over the past
several years.

The Globe of Innovation in the morning. The wooden
globe is a structure originally built for Switzerland’s national
exhibition, Expo’02, and is 40 meters wide, 27 meters tall.

View of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment Tracker Outer Barrel
(TOB) in the cleaning room. The CMS is one of two general-purpose LHC
experiments designed to explore the physics of the Terascale, the
energy region where physicists believe they will find answers to the
central questions at the heart of 21st-century particle physics.

Transporting the ATLAS Magnet Toroid End-Cap A between building 180 to ATLAS point 1.

Aerial view of CERN and the surrounding region of
Switzerland and France. Three rings are visible, the smaller (at lower
right) shows the underground position of the Proton Synchrotron, the
middle ring is the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) with a circumference
of 7 km and the largest ring (27 km) is that of the former Large
Electron and Positron collider (LEP) accelerator with part of Lake
Geneva in the background.

Courtesy of Boston.com’s The Big Picture; check out all twenty-seven images. And read about the Hadron Collider. I think I understand it.

Do you understand physics? Think that Einstein guy was a kook? You could be a crackpot. Take the test here to find out. A taste:

30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was
groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an
extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
30 points for allusions to a delay in your work
while you spent time in an asylum, or references
to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.
40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to
Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.

If you have any points already, you have the crackpot.