I'm reluctant to post anything from the BBC as a source but here we go:
quote:
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) generates a 'mini-Big Bang'
The Large Hadron Collider has successfully created a "mini-Big Bang" by smashing together lead ions instead of protons.
The scientists working at the enormous machine on Franco-Swiss border achieved the unique conditions on 7 November.
The experiment created temperatures a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun.
The LHC is housed in a 27km-long circular tunnel under the French-Swiss border near Geneva.
Up until now, the world's highest-energy particle accelerator - which is run by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern) - has been colliding protons, in a bid to uncover mysteries of the Universe's formation.
Proton collisions could help spot the elusive Higgs boson particle and signs of new physical laws, such as a framework called supersymmetry.
But for the next four weeks, scientists at the LHC will concentrate on analysing the data obtained from the lead ion collisions.
This way, they hope to learn more about the plasma the Universe was made of a millionth of a second after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.
One of the accelerator's experiments, ALICE, has been specifically designed to smash together lead ions, but the ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments have also switched to the new mode.
'Strong force'
David Evans from the University of Birmingham, UK, is one of the researchers working at ALICE.
He said that the collisions obtained were able to generate the highest temperatures and densities ever produced in an experiment.
"We are thrilled with the achievement," said Dr Evans.
The ALICE experiment has been designed specifically for lead ion collisions
"This process took place in a safe, controlled environment, generating incredibly hot and dense sub-atomic fireballs with temperatures of over ten trillion degrees, a million times hotter than the centre of the Sun.
"At these temperatures even protons and neutrons, which make up the nuclei of atoms, melt resulting in a hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as a quark-gluon plasma."
Quarks and gluons are sub-atomic particles - some of the building blocks of matter. In the state known as quark-gluon plasma, they are freed of their attraction to one another. This plasma is believed to have existed just after the Big Bang.
He explained that by studying the plasma, physicists hoped to learn more about the so-called strong force - the force that binds the nuclei of atoms together and that is responsible for 98% of their mass.
After the LHC finishes colliding lead ions, it will go back to smashing together protons once again.
Damn, I didn't save the link to the "Lira made another thread"-sad-frog and you were so lame to delete that thread. :(
Joss Weatherby
It wasn't a mini big-bang, it just created the conditions right after the big-bang... Two lead ions smashng together doesn't equal all the matter in the universe compacted into an infinity small space and then released.
If anything this is a lot closer to fission... Instead of the material naturally splitting and releasing energy they had to throw them around a giant track at nearly the speed of light and smash them into each other (and obviously lead wouldn't result in a self-sustaining reaction either).
Meat187
Four posts and no retarded the-world-will-end theories yet? I am disappoint. And drunk!
Lira
quote:
Originally posted by Meat187
Damn, I didn't save the link to the "Lira made another thread"-sad-frog and you were so lame to delete that thread. :(
:stongue:
Lira 1 - 1 Meat
Meat187
But honestly, I don't know anything intelligent to say about this. Even as someone coming from science I only undertstand it on a very superficial level and am too lazy to read up. But clearly comparing the temperature to the sun and things like saying it's a mini-Big Bang are gross simplifications for the uninformed public in order to make them think it's sooooo cool. Or it will blow up. Or both.
Lira
quote:
Originally posted by Kenny Rogers
plasma sure is interesting though, its considered the fifth state of materials, what the hell is the fourth?
Bas.Actually, according to Wikipedia, plasma is the 4th, there's even a cute illustration of how it works:
However there's far more stuff to be said about it and, without a degree in physics, I'll just leave it to someone more competent than me on this issue.
Sushipunk
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Bas.
:stongue:
Chimney
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Bas.
:stongue:
Joss Weatherby
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Bas.
Actually, according to Wikipedia, plasma is the 4th, there's even a cute illustration of how it works:
However there are far more stuff to be said about it and, without a degree in physics, I'll just leave it to someone more competent than me on this issue.
so bas is the third... they just misspelled it...
Lira
quote:
Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
so bas is the third... they just misspelled it...
Bas was left out because you cannot make Bas either from gas or from plasma. Bas is made of solid deep house sets.
