Talk:Large Hadron Collider/Archive 10

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Content removal

I recently added the following content with reference: The LHC is shut down for technical maintenance after every 6 weeks of stable operation.[1]. This content was removed largely stating that maintenance of such a complex scientific instrument as the LHC is not an operational challenge. I tend to disagree and further assert that such maintenance would likely be an overriding challenge to others. My76Strat 02:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

  1. ^ Preparing for faster filling, CERN, The bulletin, August 2, 2010 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
Routine maintenance does not really seem notable to me for this article, but I think it is a judgment call; look for some consensus of other editors. Wwheaton (talk) 03:13, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
Hi My76Strat, it was me who reverted your edit. As the title says, the section Operational Challenges is meant to list the aspects of the LHC that make its operation technically challenging, such as, e.g., the huge amount of energy stored in the magnets or carried by the beams (indeed, in this context, the comment on the computer hackers ought to be removed or rephrased - BTW is that story really relevant?). I don't see how the mere fact that a technical stop for maintenance is scheduled every six weeks of operations would constitute by itself an "Operational challenge". I also don't understand the meaning of your sentence above such maintenance would likely be an overriding challenge to others. If your point is that the LHC is a complicated machine and maintaining it is difficult, well, that's a rather trivial statement, I don't think it is relevant enough for the section (but other editors might disagree). Incidentally, the technical stop mentioned in the article you cite is not the same thing as a full shutdown of the LHC. The latter is a much longer business as it involves also the cryogenics. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 13:30, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments Ptrslv72. I understand your position and concur that the section Operational Challenges may not be best suited for the content I appended. I was incorrectly assuming it was a full shutdown and extrapolated that as an operational challenge. I first looked for a section about maintenance, which the article lacks. The section I decided to edit provided the best fit, of the available sections. I think the article is remiss to exclude references to maintenance. And I think to trivialize the function of maintenance trivializes the contributions of these team members. Anyway, those are my thoughts in this regard. Thanks for considering them. Cheers. My76Strat 22:09, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
The middle of the Design section has a paragraph that starts out with "Once or twice a day, as the protons are accelerated from..." This looks like a good place for a new section break for "Operation" that would then allow for including the part about maintenance every 6 weeks. This section could also discuss the calendar or schedule. See footnote 42 "CERN Press Office (30 March 2010)" which discusses that the design was that they would shut down for four months per year and now are pushing to instead run for two years before a potentially longer shutdown. --Marc Kupper|talk 09:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

What goes in the "Popular Culture" section

Three days after the debate about Les Horribles Cernettes in the previous thread got stuck in a 2-2 "tie", I am trying to revive it by framing it in the wider question of what should make the cut for the Popular Culture section of the LHC article. The topic has already been discussed in the past, see e.g.: Videogames, "In popular culture" again, "In popular culture" AGAIN!!!", Black Mesa incident Similarities, and also these partially-related threads: LHC being sabotaged by time travellers from the future and Bomber bird. In all cases, the consensus among the majority of regular editors was that the section should not become a collection of more-or-less-LHC-related trivia, but, rather, it should describe instances in which popular culture items have truly brought the LHC to the attention of the wide public. Under this point of view, it cannot be denied that "Angels and Demons" (book and movie), "Flashforward" (book and TV series) and even the "LHC rap" have, for better or worse, introduced the LHC to audiences of millions. On the other hand, the impact of "Les Horribles Cernettes" on the public's awareness of the LHC seems much more dubious. The band has indeed been mentioned by NYT in 1998, but afterwards I don't think that a lot people beyond friends and colleagues have heard of them. Can the band really be considered as part of "popular culture", in the same league as the other stories mentioned in the section? Moreover, the band's connection with the LHC itself (apart from the acronym) is somewhat tenuous: the link would be more at home in a hypothetical article about the social life of CERN employees than in an article about the collider. I am also worried that, if we lower so much the bar for inclusion of a story in the Popular Culture section, a lot more editors will feel entitled to push the books or songs or videogames that they think were vaguely inspired by the LHC. In summary, I would be inclined to remove the Cernettes, but since there is clearly some disagreement on the issue it will be better to collect more than the four opinions that have already been expressed before touching the article. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 11:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

That adjournment didn't last long, did it? --Michael C. Price talk 11:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
so what? from Oxford English Dictionary: adjourn, v. 1 break off (a meeting) with the intention of resuming it later. 2 postpone (a resolution or sentence).
anyway, let's stop the bickering right now otherwise - as usually happens - the other editors will be too scared to contribute. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 12:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

The flood of trivia that I was afraid of may just have started: an anonymous editor added a mention to an episode of Big Bang Theory in which the character Leonard receives an invitation for two people to visit the LHC and has to decide which of his friends will go with him. What does this add to our understanding of the impact of the LHC on popular culture? There must be definitely many more people who have seen this episode than people who have ever heard of the Cernettes, therefore it might be hard to reject BBT if we retain the Cernettes. But then where do we draw the line? How do we prevent the section from becoming a trivia list? Are other editors apart from myself and Michael (see thread above) willing to contribute their thoughts? Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 10:53, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced. --Michael C. Price talk 11:49, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but easily sourceable (e.g., here). The true issue is relevance to the article. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 10:59, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
No. IMDB is not a source. --Michael C. Price talk 11:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
What about Wikipedia? I think I remember you arguing that featured -> relevant... Ptrslv72 (talk) 11:09, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Here we go, more trivia from an anonymous editor... Ptrslv72 (talk) 22:33, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I am very disappointed after reading all of this talk about what goes in a section about popular culture. References from popular culture go in the popular culture section. But it seems as though some people only want to see references of which they approve. After seeing a comment like, "The gaming community is not that large," I have to think someone does not even understand what the term 'popular culture' means. This is not meant to be an attack or insult. But you have to be ignorant to think that gamers are not a large community. And you actually removed a reference to a video game that has sold a number of copies that is very likely larger than the amount of people who even know what the LHC is. Either drop your bias and stop removing content that doesn't appeal to you personally, or just remove the section altogether. Otherwise, this article is a mockery. Phreddkroe (talk) 17:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hear, hear. Except that removing the section is not an option, unless you mean create a new article. --Michael C. Price talk 17:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Hi Phreddkroe. As Khukri stated in the edit summary, so far the consensus among regular editors of this article (with the possible exception of Michael) was as follows: the fact that an item (I mean a book, game, band etc) refers one way or another to the LHC is not enough by itself to justify its inclusion in "Popular Culture" section. The relation between the item and the LHC must be notable, i.e. the item must have affected the public's perception of the LHC in some demonstrable way, elicited a response from CERN, or something like that. A useful list of three criteria to determine the notability of an item for the Popular Section of an article (as opposed to the notability per se) can be found e.g. here. It does not seem to me that the item deleted a few days ago by Khukri meets those three criteria in relation with the LHC, while e.g. a movie such as Angels and Demons (which I personally despise, but this is irrelevant) certainly does. The videogame you are referring to (you should read the deleted paragraph here, it's from December 2008) is a perfect example of what I mean. It does not matter how large the gaming community is, or how many copies of "Half Life" were sold. Half Life certainly deserves an article of its own, but the mere fact that some gamers believe that some elements of the game were inspired by the LHC is not notable enough to justify a mention in the LHC article. BTW it wasn't me who made the comment that upset you, but calling other editors "ignorant" and the article "a mockery" might not be a good idea if you don't want others to feel attacked or insulted... ;-) Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 22:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
No, Phreddkroe, you're not seeing things; he really does believe all that crap! --Michael C. Price talk 23:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
A very constructive contribution, Michael, but you must stop being uncivil. Comments such as the one above, as well as this and this, are unacceptable. Say something that is relevant to this debate or just shut up. Ptrslv72 (talk) 23:35, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
1) That was an essay you referred to, not policy. 2) the game passes the 2nd criterion "Have reliable sources that don't generally cover the subject pointed out the reference?" and is therefore non-trivia. --Michael C. Price talk 00:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
1) I did not claim that it was policy, and an essay can still be a useful guide in a discussion. 2) The game does not pass the other two criteria, thus - according to the essay - is probably not valuable content. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 08:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I see that Khukri is valiantly trying to keep the story on the ATLAS music CD (see e.g. here) out of the Popular Culture section on the grounds that it is not notable. Needles to say, I fully agree with Khukri's position, but at the same time I find that position hard to justify while we retain in the section the story on the "Cernettes". Why exactly would this new band of CERN employees be less notable than the old band of CERN employees? And what is the specific notability of both bands with respect to the LHC? These stories are trivia, they get nowhere near the mass exposure enjoyed by the other items in the section, and if I had my way I would remove both of them. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

And I would keep both. --Michael C. Price talk 14:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
And I think they fail on notability grounds, that it doesn't add anything to the article and that they are only included as trying to inherit notability from the LHC or CERN itself. Khukri 15:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Time for a "Findings" section?

Are there any published results yet? Time to add a "Findings" section? -- 77.7.173.41 (talk) 12:13, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Even "no results yet" is worth reporting here. --Michael C. Price talk 12:32, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Some information about early results is already scattered through the "Test timeline" section, but a dedicated "Findings" section might not be a bad idea. We could open that new section with the sentence CERN scientists estimate that if the Standard Model is correct, ... draw meaningful conclusions., perhaps augmented in the way discussed a few sections above. We should also move there (and properly trim down) the story on the charged-hadron excess. As usual, the problem will be finding appropriate sources (the scientific publications are far too technical and the summaries in the news are often inaccurate). Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 17:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Hardly a problem. Use the news and technical sources in conjunction with each other. --Michael C. Price talk 19:47, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I took a first shot at the new section along the lines given above. We might consider adding a sentence about the "ridge" if somebody manages to explain what it is in accessible terms. However, bear in mind that that result is still very preliminary (indeed, this link is not an official CERN press release but, rather, a news item from the CERN user office). Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
thank you for writing the section. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

And here are fresh results from ALICE. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 08:55, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Another finding worth mentioning is the trapped antimater, freshly published in Nature. BloodIce (talk) 11:12, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

No, because that's not an LHC related experiment, but is situated at the AD (Antiproton Decelerator) which is a different facility at CERN. Aknochel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC).

Here is a brand-new CERN press release that we might want to incorporate in the section: ATLAS results on Jet quenching. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

News from CMS: a search for micro black holes in collisions at center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV finds none, and allows to set lower bounds on the hypothetical MBH mass. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 09:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The"Search and Discovery" section of the February 2011, Physics Today, p 15, reports CMS limits on the minimum mass of micro black holes produced in ~1013 p-p collisions at 7 TeV, as a function of the characteristic mass scale MD of the proposed unification of the gravitational and electroweak interactions. The paper is here, 15 Dec 2010, submitted to Physics Letters B. I think this probably should go into the article in some form. Any or our experts want to do it? Wwheaton (talk) 06:42, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

More news from CMS: a search for events with jets and significant missing energy in a sample of data corresponding to 35 inverse femtobarns finds agreement with the expected Standard Model background, allowing to set bounds on the parameter space of a constrained version of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.

Sooner or later I will overcome my laziness and summarize all the results listed above in the "Findings" section of the article (unless some kind volunteer does it first... ;-) Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is a popularizing article on the lack of new-physics discoveries in the first year of data taking. It might be useful as a non-technical reference. Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:12, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Here are the new ATLAS papers [1], [2] on searches for SUSY in the 2010 dataset. Like CMS, they see no evidence of new particles and set bounds on the parameter space of a constrained version of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.

Hoping to jumpstart the section, I added a sentence on the results of BSM searches in the first-year data sample. Note that the reference list is not exhaustive (there are also earlier papers on exotic searches). I also cited a few popularizing articles (including the one cited above). Now we must add a paragraph on the results of the heavy-ion program, and perhaps give more details on the various searches. Anyway, we should wait a few days before investing too much time/energy in the article: the Moriond Conference is under way, and new results might be announced in the course of this week. Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 18:29, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Top Importance?

This article is currently "High" importance, which is defined on the WikiProject Physics page as:

  • High: Important or famous. Something an undergraduate physics major could have heard of or studied.

Personally, I would suggest that the current relevance of the LCH and the associated media coverage gives it wider awareness at this point in time. I'm not personally from a physics background, but I'm very aware of the existence of the LHC and I imagine this to be the case for the majority of people who do keep an eye on current affairs. It's certainly the most high-profile and important piece of equipment currently in working order from a physics perspective.

  • Top: Fundamental and famous physics.

The word "Famous" jumps out at me there. Even if it doesn't turn out to be a massive deal in the long term, it's current status definitely counts as famous in my eyes and is deserving of "Top" status for now at least.GGdown (talk) 14:30, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The specification of the list of requirements for a page to be a "Top importance" Physics page lists as one of the possible qualifications "Top X visited sites ". Wasn't LHC the most visited wikipedia physics site in 2008 - at least according to the telegraph reference at the top of this page? I was surprised to see that it is currently only rated as the 98th most visited Physics wikipedia page. However, I would be very surprised if when its results about the Higgs boson come in - whichever result they produce - it will not go back up to number one again. Lots of other experimental results it may produce will have the same effect, but whichever of the 2 possible answers it gives about the Higgs boson seem certain to have this effect. I actually think it should qualify as top on the importance of the results it produces, but accept this is subjective. However, shouldn't it also qualify on the less subjective and previously documented requirement that it has been the top visited Physics wikipedia page in the past, is a high visited site now, and is expected to be the top visited site in the future when its results are conclusive - whichever way those results go? Holland jon (talk) 11:21, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Hadron/Hardon

This may have been discussed in the past, but I'm getting truly tired of the regularity with which some newbie changes "Hadron" to "Hardon", evidently under the assumption that he (almost certainly a "he") is being SO clever, and original, since nobody could ever have thought of this hilarious stunt before. I know it's bad form to bite the newcomers, but for something this puerile, you want to just smack 'em. Is there no way to prevent this, perhaps set a bot to revert it automatically? Or is it something we have to live with, and revert manually as necessary? Cheers, DoctorJoeE (talk) 14:37, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Sympathies. "CluBot" fixes many obvious types of vandalism in a minute or less. User:Cobi (talk) seems to be the cognizant keeper, and I have posted a plea for help on his/her talk page. I know nothing of this stuff, but I hope help will get here soon. (Has anyone else already tried to automate this?) Wwheaton (talk) 01:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Dark Matter: 23% of the Universe or 26%?

The dark matter article quotes a NASA webpage claiming that DM amounts to 23% of the energy density of the Universe. However, a CERN webpage quotes 26%. Clearly one of the two sources is outdated.

Incidentally, the LHC article said that "DM amounts to 23% of the energy density of the Universe" but one editor recently changed it into "DM amounts to 23% of the mass". Indeed, the sentence used to read like that in the past, until somebody complained that Dark Energy should not counted as mass. In General Relativity the concepts of mass and energy are notoriously interchangeable, but I adopted the wording of the NASA website (i.e., energy density) to avoid confusion. If anybody feels strongly about it we might revert to that language. Ptrslv72 (talk) 14:09, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I'll ask. Cheers Khukri 14:26, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
CERN have updated their info page, seems like it wasn't up to date. Cheers Khukri 13:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Mass would have been okay, as long as it specified (or linked to) relativistic mass. BTW energy density is not technically correct either, since you're talking about the averaged energy density. Relativistic mass would have been clearer, IMO. Or just omit mass and energy altogether as CERN do when they say: "Dark matter makes up about 23% of the Universe." -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 09:27, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

No history?

There's no significant history about the LHC's origins. It is made to seem as though it dropped out of the sky in 2008. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.252.64.112 (talk) 11:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Higgs Singlet and FTL neutrino's worth a mention?

A rather new theory appeared this year in March, concerning the Higgs singlet, which is thought to be created with a Higg's Boson, where it "unsticks" to the braneworld or universe by going into an extra dimension not unlike a graviton, except the physics of this alow it to travel back through time. Its only a theory, but I think it deserves a mention on the page somewhere. See this and this.

Another thing is the recent doscovery of faster than light neutrino's, although scientists are still yet to refine their data on this. Wormulon (talk) 11:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'll let others comment on the singlet, but I think this would be more suited to the higgs article first before here. The time of flight neutrino observations are already on the CNGS, Opera, CERN, Faster than light articles, but this isn't linked to the LHC just that CERN operates the two machines. Cheers Khukri 12:44, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Readers of this article want to know...

...is it true, as I have sort of gathered from the popular science media, that people who understand this stuff well are convinced that it is irrational to believe that there will ever be any practical application for the findings of the LHC? Pure science only? Sheldon and all the other sheldons will have an understanding in their brains that will feel nice to them when they understand these things, but the rest of us who can't or don't care enough to understand about this kind of physics should never expect any benefit whatsoever from this investment? Chrisrus (talk) 02:53, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Who are these people and if they don't care enough about it why are they still commenting on it? My first question is are they qualified to comment on it, do they understand the advances in science, medical imagery, computing to name a few that these types of machines have already developed? This talk page is about discussing and making improvements to the article not as a social commentary forum to discuss what people think or whether it is worthwhile, there are more than enough blogs on the web for that. But I would just remind them that the world wide web, that tool these people are using to discuss whether the LHC or CERN has instrinsic value, was developed at CERN and given to the world freely as a directly result of developements for the LHC. This in itself has paid for the LHC many times over. Here and here are few others from improvement to mammograms to pet medical imagery to the Medipix chip. To me it sounds like they just plain don't understand it and don't want to make the effort to, but still want something to whine about, and nothing about being a Sheldon.Khukri 07:26, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
It is disingenuous to claim that the spin-offs make the LHC worthwhile, since those benefits could have been acquired at far less cost by direct investment in specific projects. Did we really need the spaceprogram to develop non-stick frying pans? (A myth, I know, but you get the point.) -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 09:32, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
The problem Michael is the "...could have been acquired at far less cost by direct investment in specific projects.", what is the driving force behind these direct investments? In reality there are three main driving forces behind any type of development, R&D such as CERN & the space programs, corporate innovation and military developement. Both the military and scientific R&D tend to stumble on these advances or benefits by accident. Directed programs as you suggest tend to only be financed by corporations looking for profit and focused on a certain goal and miss these accidental developments. When they are found the end product comes at far more cost to society as they have a less altruistic motivation than organisations like CERN who tend to put their developments freely into the public domain. I have tried to find it though will look again when I get back to work on Tuesday, that CERN has paid for itself ten times over with what it has given to society, and it's cost when compared to military expenditure, events like the olympics pale into insignificance. I don't believe it is disingenuous, but everyone has their viewpoint. Cheers Khukri 10:30, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict with that from MC Price above.) Look at, for example, the article Anti-lasar, which is just a tiny stub, but it has a section about projected practical applications for the technology, giving the reader a good idea of the practical applications of the technology once the experiments are completed; not as a spin-off that might come as a side result of figuing out how do the research, as in the sort of "Teflon and Tang" arguement for manned space exploration for example, but what the anti-lasar could actually be good for. In contrast, this article presents the only purpose of this massive thing rationally projected by people who are in a position to know what they are talking about will be the positive feelings in the brains of a tiny percentage of people who are not only mentally capable of understanding it, but also happen to be interested in such matters. Readers like me should be able to find what practical benefits the general public can expect from finding the hyperbolically named "God particle", or whether experts agree that there very likely never be any, as one might expect because we've gotten countless benefits from breakthroughs in Newtonian physics, a source of power from the work of Einstein and such, and quantum physics and such is helpful to us all in the design of computers, so upon arrival at the article one could be expected to think that this will be similar. I came here to find out what this pending breakthrough is projected to do for us, or whether, as I've gathered, experts agree that there is very good reason to doubt that anything practical will ever come out of this breakthough. The sources you provide seem to be talking about spin-off benefits that come from things already learned from just making putting together such a massive project, quite like those "Teflon and Tang" benefits that we got from the Moon missions, as opposed to the actual facts learned from going to the moon and picking up the moon rocks and bringing them back and learning from them; i.e.: not spin-off things that we couldn't have learned in any other way, such as directly investing in non-stick coating research and powdered drink mix development programs. Whether this experiment is expected by experts to never have any practical benefits beyond such spin-off things learnable elsehow, as readers like me might rationally expect based on the winfalls from previous breakthroughs, or whether it's true that this breakthrough is different from those before in that experts agree that there is no way that it will ever have practial applications for society in general because for complicated reasons there is no way this will ever have any such applications. The spin-off stuff would be a nice addition to the article as well, but that's not as important, but if you want to use these citations to add a spin-off benefits section as well I wouldn't object, but that's different from a section on practical applications, or lack of same, sorely missing from this article. Chrisrus (talk) 10:04, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Look here for example, this http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/nov/20/topstories3.science is the kind of thing readers like me want to know: "Professor Engelen admits there is no practical benefit in finding the Higgs Boson. "Even in my wildest imagination I can't think of this discovery having a practical application"" So my vague recollection was correct, there's never going to be any practical benefit from the LHC beyond spin-off stuff. I will wait a bit for comment, but then I'm adding this fact to the article in as upfront and blunt a way as appropriate. Chrisrus (talk) 10:36, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
The higgs isn't the entirety of the LHC, a large part admittedly, but it does have other purposes, and new possibilities are being discussed all the time and and plans being made when looking forward to the LHC consolidation. No one can ever tell you in advance what the benefits of pure research will be, it's impossible, but hindsight shows us that up to now the benefits to humanity of pure science have outweighed the negatives by a significant factor. Be blunt by all means but avoid your own POV. Cheers Khukri 10:58, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
This sums it up quite nicely, long paper but interesting thoughts on this debate, which has this comment from Rutherford around 1930 similar to Engelens above "Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of atoms is talking moonshine", and we know how wrong that proved to be. Khukri 11:04, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Nice link. Quoting selectively:
In my experience the general public generally finds the cultural argument at least, if not more, convincing than spin-offs, and it is dangerous to base arguments on examples of spin-off which may not stand up to careful analysis. [........] It is true that so far there have not been any direct applications of the discoveries of particle physics [...]
And of course Engelen does use the important qualifier "Even in my wildest imagination" - I'm sure the Higgs, like any theoretical advance, will have applications one day. The definition of the technological singularity is that we can't imagine past it, so that day may arrive sooner than most expect. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 11:25, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, he does say that, but the surprising thing is, unlike you, none of them that I've seen says anything remotely like the "I'm sure...than most expect" statement you've made here. In fact, they seem to go out of their way to stress that in the case of this breakthrough (these breakthroughs?), we can rest assured that the day you refer to will never arrive. How they could possibly be confident of that, I don't know, but when they do address this question directly they don't qualify that statement nearly as much as one might expect given the track record of past breakthroughs. It seems that, with the knowledge necessary to understand deeply the LHC, Higgs-Boson, and whatnot, comes some kind of insight that there expecting any kind of practical benefit beyond the spin-offs and intrinsic value of knowing these things; nothing more will ever come of such things. I can only speculate as to how they could know that. The other thought that occurs to me is that they might be deliberately down-playing the possibility that something will come of it so that when nothing does we won't be disappointed. But they are scientists and scientists don't normally say "never" in a flippant way, so I really don't thinks so. Anyway, we can only go by what they say and as far as I've seen that's what they say and given their credentials and the fact that they seem to have every motivation to tell the public otherwise it seems we can take that to the bank and cash it.
Also, it seems to me that the logical place to put the new "benefits" section would be right next to the "costs" section. Should it go "benefits" before or after "costs"?Chrisrus (talk) 05:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Scientists have an abysmal record at determining what is impossible. See the first of Clarke's three laws. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 07:31, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Please note, this page is for discussions of edits to the LHC article. General discussions of the merits of Blue sky research do not belong here. Ashmoo (talk) 14:39, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, Mr. Ashmoo. So, where do you think the "benefits" section should go, before or after the "costs" section? Chrisrus (talk) 06:13, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Since the LHC was constructed to solve the scientific issues that are details in the 'Purpose' section and not for specific tangible benefits, I'd say the section should go in the later section of the article. But all mentions of possible benefits need to be sourced to a notable commentator who directly linked the LHC to the benefit. General speculation about practical uses of the LHC's discoveries should not be included. Ashmoo (talk) 09:47, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Not sure if this question was serious or simply intended to annoy the "sheldons" (as someone put it) of wikipedia. In any case, I can't think of any practical benefit in finding the Higgs Boson either, however, the point is to further our understanding of quantum mechanics which in turn has an impact on a huge number of technologies and other scientific fields we benefit from daily in every day life, for example the computer we all (probably) are reading this on. Measuring the orbit of mercury doesn't have any practical applications either but it helped us verify the correctness of general relativity and relativity is necessary for the GPS system to work correctly. 'Pure science' usually means exploring new ground, no one knows what to find (if they did there really wouldn't be any point) and consequently it's impossible to predict exactly what the benefits will be. However we can be certain that the LHC will improve our understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe and that have proven incredibly useful in the past. If you worry about tax money being wasted on pointless experiments and obscure theories there are plenty of worthy targets out there but the LHC isn't one of them.85.230.137.5 (talk) 13:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

That seems convincing and true, but actually that's not what the experts seem to be saying in the sources. They seem to be saying that, I don't know how they could possibly know this, that, unlike previous breakthroughs in physics, in this case they can state with confidence that there will never be any practical benefits coming from this knowledge. They only disagree about whether to "sell it to the public" on spin-off technologies or by waxing philosophical about the great human spiritual need to know this wonderful great mystery. Don't take it from me, check it yourself, I could be wrong about that. Then please summarize what they say in the article in a "benefits" section to accompany the "costs" section, as this is a glaring omission that ignores the need of the reader and surplants them with the need of fans of the LHC to promote their POV that the project is wonderful and the article should, like the LHC website, promote the project. Chrisrus (talk) 15:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Who said there has to be benefits? It has a number of objectives and none of them are about benefits. We can explain maybe to the readers that that it's pure research and as such no one will say there are benefits, but as I said in my first response to you history shows us that the economics benefits far outweigh the initial costs and to demonstrate this we could link to something like this. Khukri 19:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
This is different. As the article Pure Research teaches, it is often the long term it is the basis for many practical applications and is often supported because as you say, ya never know. Who knows where it will lead? In this case, it's different. Experts seem to agree that there will never be any long term practical applications, so forget about it, this is different. This is a pretty extraordinary thing about this area of research. How they can say this will such seeming confidence is beyond me. How can they assure us that it's not going to happen? It's one of the most notable things about this project. The amount of experts declaring that there will never be any practical application for knowing about the Higgs Boson and whatnot. They say that there is just plain no rational basis for forseeing any application whatsoever and we should believe it. They call insinuations that there might be an energy sourse or some such, things like "irresponsable" and "fairy stories" and some such. Check it yourself, I know it's hard to believe, but they're telling us to erase from our minds any notion that the kind of thing you say about it being pure research and pointing to the history and rational basis for thinking that something might ever come of the LHC that would improve human existence on a practical level, they assure us to take it from them, it'll never happen in this case, that this case is somehow different. How on earth they can know this I have no idea. So just pointing the readers to the article pure reseach where it says that there is often long term application for it is not serving the reader well because s/he'll walk away with hope that the experts are instructing us not to have. Scientists don't normally take so much time out to tell us this about something. Instead, they either point to spin-off benefits, economic benefits for the area surrounding the facility, or wax philosophical about solving the greatest mysteries of the universe, or telling each other not to use one or the other of these justifications. There is quite a bit of this defensive, seemingly pre-emptive talk (I don't know anyone but me who's asked for some rational cost-benefit analysis, so they seem to be arguing back to a strawman about it), but in the media there is plenty of this expert discussion addressing this point and disagreeing about how to then "sell this to the public". They also spend a lot of time talking about how, if one compares the costs to some of the most expensive things you can imagine and saying things like "look how much cheaper than (the Iraq war, for example) it is, this isn't so mind-bogglingly expensive if you look at it that way" and some such. It's all over the media, don't take it from me. If the experts want to talk about the spin-off stuff, which has been substantial, and the philosophical rationalizations, and blah blah, but we are to understand that unlike what one might think when they here that this is pure research, this will never have practical applications; if they want to say this so often to us, then why does this article not report this? If it's important to them and maybe to the reader, then it should be important enough to summarize in the article in an appropriate way. Chrisrus (talk) 22:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
OK lets see some sources then that say the LHC will have no benefits. I can see loads of sources[3][4][5][6][7][8][9], to link a few, that have a similar position to mine and I've seen people saying they can't envisage a practical use for the higgs discovery, but that is not the entirety of the LHC.
Cheers Khukri 07:17, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
That's reassuring. :) Also: I was thinking a little about how the first professor said he could not think of any practical benefit. Perhaps it's wrong to ask the actual scientists working at the LHC what the benefit will be, since the focus for a scientist in this field is naturally the pure science. It would make more sense to direct the question of how it will benefit society towards those who are funding the experiment. They have hopefully given that question more thought.85.230.137.5 (talk) 17:59, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, that statement from Hawkins may have been the end of my arguement, but wait. This all started because of this article that I was reading and linked to and referred to above: | http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/nov/20/topstories3.science, specifically this part here I quote:

Professor Engelen admits there is no practical benefit in finding the Higgs Boson. "Even in my wildest imagination I can't think of this discovery having a practical application, but setting ourselves that goal, doing something so exceptionally difficult, has required us to be innovative technology-wise. I can very easily sell the idea of new and fundamental science using that argument, even though the Higgs itself is not going to let you make a better toothpaste," he said.

Now it seems my argument has been misplaced. It's more at specifically at the Higgs-Boson, and not necessarily at the LHC per se, which, for all the reader knows at this point, is scheduled to do work which an expert could, in his or her wildest imagination, conceive of a practical non-spinnoff benefit from. That of course will have to wait until the somehow more urgent matter of the Higgs-Boson is settled. (What kind of timetable, broadly speaking, are we talking here before we can get to experiment #2?) These are matters readers like me come to this article looking to learn about but can't seem to find easily. Chrisrus (talk) 20:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC)


You might check out Big Science and the LHC, by Gian Giudice (CERN). In the last section he discusses what - in his view - are the benefits for society of "big" fundamental-science projects. Cheers Ptrslv72 (talk) 09:29, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

The only problem here is idiots who honestly think theory has no practical use, despite the fact that scientific theory allows practical applications because we then UNDERSTAND HOW, WHY AND WHAT works. 58.7.134.151 (talk) 14:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC) Sutter Cane

If experts in this area do in fact agree that that it's not rational to expect any practical benefits beyond spin-off technology that could be gotten more cheaply elsehow, and the rationale given for an experiment is based on non-scientific philosophical benefits that will accrue to a tiny group of experts, it's not unitelligent to ask for a rational cost/benefit analysis. If experts do not so agree, then that's another matter. This is not tantamount to an argument against pure research in general as the opportunity costs of LHC include lots of pure research as well, so to argue as this citation seems to for pure research in general is to miss the point. Everyone is for pure research; it's a question of priorities in a world where nothing is free and we can't do everything. Nevertheless, it's wrong to refuse to include a "benefits" section alongside the "costs" section to frankly inform a reader of the spin-off benefits, expert opinion on possible direct benefits, and the oft-cited fuzzy "spiritual" benefits that would come from finding the Higgs, as the inclusion of a "benefits" section would constitute article improvement and serve the reader. Also, is it true that there was no research beyond "the search for the God particle" that the LHC can do that couldn't be done by pre-existing equipment? Chrisrus (talk) 19:16, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

BBC article on SUSY searches

The view that the recent LHCb results "all but killed" supersymmetry stems from the misunderstandings of a BBC journalist and is pretty much ridiculed in the physics community (see e.g. here and here). A far more balanced presentation of the same results can be found in the Fermilab/SLAC magazine:

Looking for excesses like this is one way to search for supersymmetry. Not seeing this type of enhancement does not, however, rule out the existence of supersymmetry, said Sheldon Stone, group leader of experimental elementary particle physics at Syracuse University. “There is still a lot of room for new physics to appear,” he said.

I am inclined to remove the sentence about the BBC article. Comments? Cheers, Ptrslv72 (talk) 12:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Far better to keep the sentence but provide the more balanced analysis as well. Just removing the story is not useful to readers looking for answers.
Also another story: LHC reveals hints of 'new physics' in particle decays needs coverage here. -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 07:17, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Data processing

There's nothing in the article (including the computing resources section) about how the data is processed. Most of the raw data is lost, IIUC, with only the subset flagged up as "interesting" kept for further analysis. Do the algorithms search for events that confirm various extensions of the SM, or do they look for anything that doesn't fit with the SM? -- cheers, Michael C. Price talk 08:16, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

To be or not to be

"On 13 December 2011 it was reported that both the CMS and ATLAS detectors have shown intensity peaks in the 124–125 GeV range, consistent with either background noise or the observation of the Higgs boson." While correct this sounds a bit strange to me, couldn't it be made a bit clearer? If I have understood the press release from CMS correctly, isn't the big news that they have excluded the rest of the energy spectrum, so if this, not yet significant excess of events, isn't the Higgs boson it would seem it doesn't exist at all? Happy new year! 85.230.137.5 (talk) 13:46, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I updated the section, hope it is clearer now. 85.230.137.5 (talk) 14:26, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Cost section vague?

There have been statements on the talk:higgs boson article that question spending taxpayer money on the LHC. I thought they brought up a good point. Does one country shoulder more financial burden than another? Is there any kind of "fiscal year breakdown" of the operating costs that could be added to the article? Still very new at this, so any advice is welcome. Mophedd (talk) 21:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Who funds the project?

The article should mention which countries/organisations etc. pay for the project and in what proportions83.7.157.251 (talk) 13:59, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Hydrogen vs. Hydrogen ions

"the beam pipes contain 1.0×10−9 gram of hydrogen"

Wouldn't that be hydrogen ions? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.196.68 (talk) 15:56, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Copper Content

How many tons of copper were used in the project? Copper prices have skyrocketed since this project began and I suspect that the LHC is responsible. It also begs the question that after the LHC ceases operation who gets all the copper? Will Switzerland then own a significant portion of the world's copper resources? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frank2040 (talk • contribs) 11:56, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

The LHC only use a tiny fraction of the worlds copper resources, also I would assume all parts of the LHC is owned by CERN and not the Swiss Confederation. So, no, they will not.85.230.137.182 (talk) 16:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. According to List of countries by copper production, in 2006 15,100,000 tonnes of copper was produced. So even if the LHC used 100k tonnes of copper (seems rather unlikely to me [http://lhc.ac.uk/about-the-lhc/faqs.html), they would only be using ~0.7% of the 2006 production. Nil Einne (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Higgs boson "confirmed"

4.4 Timeline of operations

"4 July 2012, Second new particle discovery, a new boson observed that is "consistent with" the theorized Higgs boson. (This has now been confirmed as the Higgs boson itself.[65])"

Ref 65. The article actually doesn't say "confirmed", but rather "strongly indicates". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.95.144.152 (talk) 13:58, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Picture

We have made follow .svg in germany. Perhaps you will also use it in the english articel:

--Calle Cool (talk) 20:59, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Updated

This page needs to be updated.

Anonymous71.164.209.8 (talk) 16:43, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

References

I recently added reference 126 and 127 to the list and, the links work and are valid, though, it is saying that they are missing or incorrect. Can anyone help fix this? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vorkel insignia (talk • contribs) 13:34, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

ptd

aoa, what r p t d

File:Ptd
12

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 39.55.58.108 (talk) 05:17, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Are you texting from your car? English please. 00:48, 25 May 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pb8bije6a7b6a3w (talk • contribs)

could we see a collision?

I'm trying to get my head around the relative intensity of these collisions. If I was a "ghost", and could stick my head in the collision zone and observe, would I see nothing? Very faint sparks? A blinding flash? What? Pb8bije6a7b6a3w (talk) 00:45, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

The maximal power at the interaction point was about 900 W so far, leading to a very intense stream of high-energetic particles that would probably look very bright, independent of the viewing direction as the particles just go through a human head. Related: Anatoli Bugorski --mfb (talk) 10:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Nonsense in the first paragraph

The third sentence in the lead is wrong. It states "Its spreads in an area of 27 km." This is complete nonsense since "27 km" cannot be an area! Please fix. CaesarsPalaceDude (talk) 22:46, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

This appears to be fixed. Delamaran (talk) 05:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

No history of origin of LHC

There is no mention of pre-operational history of the LHC or origins of the project. "It is made to seem as though it dropped out of the sky in 2008." — as already been stated in page talk by anonymous. — andrybak (talk) 00:33, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

The (featured :)) German article has a section about the history, including some English references. That can be used as guideline. --mfb (talk) 14:08, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Safety of particle collisions

The first sentence of the section reads 'The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider sparked fears that the particle collisions might produce doomsday phenomena, involving the production of stable microscopic black holes or the creation of hypothetical particles called strangelets.' But there is no explanation of why either event might be considered dangerous. 86.144.179.132 (talk) 17:46, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there is no explanation, that is correct. Maybe "because some people are actively looking for something to fear", but that is speculation and has nothing to do with the LHC. --mfb (talk) 18:19, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Higgs boson

In the introduction it says the LHC will "[...] particularly prove or disprove the existence of the theorized Higgs boson[3]." I thought it was proven and that even a Nobel Price was given for its discovery. Does it need an update? Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 00:53, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

See the following sentence for the current status. A particle has been discovered that agrees with the predictions for the standard model in every observation so far (more than 50 papers with experimental results about it now). Some seem to wait for a magical "it is the SM Higgs!" moment which will never come as measurements just get more and more precise over time. --mfb (talk) 09:40, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Does the LHC experiment prove the existence of Intelligent Creation

One of the most important conclusions of the Higgs boson LHC experiment may be on the borderline of Physics and Philosophy, subjects that were always close. Einstein stated the now accepted scientific rule, that the speed of light - 300,000 km/sec - is an absolute constant. That is represented by the letter C in his famous equation E=MC (squared). The speed cannot be surpassed by any scientific means. One of the conclusions of the LHC experiment is to back the Big Bang Theory previous speculation, that the BB (Big Bang) occurred in a portion of a second, and that most galaxies reached their locations, within the newly created universe, in that tiny time period (a split second, literally). We also know that the universe is constantly expanding. For the galaxies to be both created by the BB and move to their locations, most of which are millions of light years away from where the BB occurred, they must have moved at speeds exponentially greater than 300,000 km/sec; in fact the speed could reach C to the nth power, n being infinity . One must conclude that Einstein's rule about the speed of light's constancy, though certainly true, was shown to have been broken by the LHC experiment. This applies only to the BB and the emergence of the universe. And this beyond-Physics one time event could only have been executed by a force beyond the natural laws of Physics. Is this the proof that a creator exists, i.e. God? The Big Bang itself certainly bears uncanny resemblance to the first verses of Genesis ("Let there be light"), and one does not have to be religious to see this. It seems a plausible conclusion, that one creator was able to surpass natural law, as defined by Einstein. If one reaches this inevitable conclusion, he/she does not become religious, but admits extra-scientific facts as they are now proven to be.

Ariep88 (talk) 08:36, 27 April 2015 (UTC)Arie PachCite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).

Sources: articles about the LHC experiment, Einstein's theories.

@Ariep88: Please see WP:NOR, WP:NOTFORUM. This is not the place to discuss your speculations. --NeilN talk to me 11:43, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
YES! Just like thunder proves the existence of Zeus. Going back at repairing my toaster. (I don't know how it works though....OMG! Goddidit! -BatteryIncluded (talk) 01:15, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
You misunderstand the Big Bang theory. Nothing moved faster than light, the contradiction you try to see is just a misconception you have. This has nothing to do with the LHC, and even if it would, Wikipedia pages are not the right place to discuss it. --mfb (talk) 12:09, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Why underground?

I tried to find out why the extreme expense of excavating this monumental cave system for the experiment, but found nothing on this article. A short explanation might help enrich the article. Thanks, BatteryIncluded (talk) 19:26, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

This a question about LEP, as the LHC just used the existing tunnel. There was no available space on ground level - you cannot split a town like Ferney-Voltaire into two pieces with a gap in between for the accelerator. The required massive shielding makes it impractical as well. --mfb (talk) 22:30, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes. Can this be added and referenced in the article? Thank you. BatteryIncluded (talk) 01:36, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Heavy ions as well as protons?

The LHC can use heavy ions as well as protons, right? If so, then this should be clearly mentioned, and many of the uses of the word "protons" should be changed to something like "particles". -- Dan Griscom (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

In 2013, the LHC collided protons with lead ions for the LHC's first physics beams of 2013. - See ALICE: A Large Ion Collider Experiment prokaryotes (talk) 06:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
However, Ions appear to be protons as well. See In chemistry, the term proton refers to the hydrogen ion Proton#Hydrogen ion and Ionization can result from the loss of an electron after collisions with sub atomic particles, collisions with other atoms, molecules and ions, or through the interaction with light. and it appears that ISOLDE is responsible for some ionization at CERN. Another good article Heavy ions and quark-gluon plasma. And finally there is an article on this :) Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider prokaryotes (talk) 07:57, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Not "ions appear to be protons", but "the term ions includes protons". Accelerators (including the LHC) ionize hydrogen to produce their protons. That's why the choice is "heavy ions" versus "protons", not "ions" versus "protons". But note that not all protons are ions; those produced in the LHC collisions, as well as from radioactivity, never had electrons associated with them. -- Dan Griscom (talk) 11:07, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for clarification, thus what do you suggest, it starts with the infobox, and i think there should be a part where the differences are explained in detail. prokaryotes (talk) 11:34, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

The LHC is called "hadron collider" to include both protons and heavy ions in the name. Proton-proton collisions are the main operation mode and most of the text refers to protons only, unless heavy ions are mentioned. I found one exception and fixed it. --mfb (talk) 11:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

I've been thinking that, by specifically mentioning protons when we're also talking about heavy ions, we're being misleadingly over-precise. But, now that I re-read the "Design" section I like its organization, being specific about protons but then having a heavy ion paragraph giving the special case. I did change one "protons" to "particles" when talking about beam current. (Side note: heavy ions aren't "hadrons", but they are composed of hadrons.) -- Dan Griscom (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Depends on how exactly you define "hadrons". Anyway, irrelevant semantics. --mfb (talk) 17:50, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the infos Dan, and i disagree with Mfb, elaborating is not irrelevant, it helps toward affords to improve the article. prokaryotes (talk) 05:36, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
My comment about semantics was about the hadron definition only, not about the article edits. --mfb (talk) 09:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
In the semantic department, why do they call it the Large Hadron Collider, when the hadrons collided aren't all that large? ;) -- Dan Griscom (talk) 10:41, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Accelerator Operations v Physics Results

Currently the sections of the article are clearly titled to separate accelerator operations (things the BE department do) from physics results (things the PH department do). However, there is a lot of "pollution" in the form of physics results in the operations section. Particularly the Higgs, the Chi_b(3P) and Bs to mu mu. It is confusing to read and quite frankly rather repetitive. Why even bother having separate sections? --193.253.56.170 (talk) 23:05, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

It is a single paragraph, summarizing the things that were discovered due to the operation of the machine. I don't think it is too much. If you don't like it, feel free to remove it, but then an internal link to the physics results could be useful. --mfb (talk) 21:17, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

eloi cole?

Im a bit confused about why no one has made a topic about the april fools about dr who appearing T THE LHC — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.200.109.124 (talk) 04:30, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Not relevant for the machine, I think. --mfb (talk) 19:38, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

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Velocity computations

The design section mentions the speed of the protons at 7 TeV design energy. But the accelerator isn't running at that energy. In case anyone's interested, the computations go like this:

  • The Lorentz factor γ, the ratio by which time is slowed, length is decreased, and mass is multiplied, is simply E/E0, the ratio of the energy to the rest mass. For a proton, that's 938.272046 MeV, or 938272046 eV.
  • Since the Lorentz factor is also 1/√1−v2/c2, we can derive v/c = √1−1/γ2
  • The formula for 1−v/c involves subtracting numbers very close to 1, and so is prone to rounding error. For large values of γ, 1−√1-1/γ2 ≈ 1/2γ2, and the latter avoids rounding issues.
Proton velocities at various energies
Energy Lorentz factor v/c 1 − v/c c − v
7 TeV 7461 0.999999991 8.983 ppb 2.7 metres per second (6.0 mph)
6.5 TeV 6928 0.9999999896 10.418 ppb 3.1 metres per second (7.0 mph)
4 TeV 4263 0.9999999725 27.511 ppb 8.2 metres per second (18.4 mph)
3.5 TeV 3730 0.9999999641 35.933 ppb 10.8 metres per second (24.1 mph)
450 GeV 480 0.9999978263 2173.715 ppb 651.7 metres per second (1,457.7 mph)
X TeV {{#expr:Xe12/938272046 round 0}} {{#expr:sqrt(1-(938272046/Xe12)^2) round 10}} {{#expr:1e9/2 * (938272046/3.5e12)^2 round 3}} ppb {{convert|{{#expr:(299792458/2) * (938272046/Xe12)^2}}|m/s|mph|1|adj=ri1}}

The 2.2 ppm change in velocity between injection energy and top energy is accommodated by adjusting the 400 MHz RF frequency to maintain h = 35640. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 22:26, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Just to add some trivia, too detailed for the article: velocity is the reason the LHC cannot do lead-proton collisions at injection energy. The energy per charge is the same (given by the dipole magnets), but lead has neutrons, so energy per nucleon and therefore velocity is lower. There is just no way to keep protons and lead ions in sync to let them collide at the right place in the experiments. After ramping up the energy the velocity differences are small enough to correct timing with slightly different orbits. --mfb (talk) 01:24, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

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Category: Large Hadron Collider

What is the purpose of "Category: Large Hadron Collider"?

I was on the verge of adding that category to each of the LHC experiments, but I see that category has already been added, then later removed without comment, from more than one of those articles.[10],[11]

Rather than add-delete-add-delete over and over again, could we talk about it?

If we have that category, I feel it should be added to all relevant articles. Is there a good reason for not including that category in the ATLAS experiment or LHCb articles? Is that a good reason for removing the category entirely? --DavidCary (talk) 16:35, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not so familiar with the English category system, but if the category exists (and stays), the detectors should certainly go in. I removed Trigger (particle physics) from the category. --mfb (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Hints of new heavy particle

"whiff of new particle not predicted by physicists' standard model." [12] Science, 18 Mar 2016: Vol. 351, Issue 6279, pp. 1248-1249 DOI: 10.1126/science.351.6279.1248. -BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:05, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

The significance is not enough to claim a discovery. We can add references to the new public results from ATLAS and CMS, but I don't think we need more news articles. The dataset is the same as analyzed for the December press conference (slightly more in CMS now), and the results are basically identical, just more checks have been done. We'll know more in summer. --mfb (talk) 13:35, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

Russian collider?

Recent news suggests that CERN has accepted Russia's high-powered circular collider (FCC) . “It’s going to be an unprecedented facility designed for studying the microworld physics,” Evgeny Levichev, a scientist at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, told media. “We became intrigued by this undertaking and offered CERN our project. And this year, they’ve decided to use our design for the project.”

Would this be a useful factoid to include in the LHC article until it has legs enough to stand on its own?

Recent news where? CERN has been working on FCC studies for quite some time, always in collaboration with other institutes. CERN did not "accept" anything. All I see seems to be based on sputniknews which does not look like a reliable source. The "project" seems to be the crab crossing, one of many components of the accelerator, not the whole accelerator design. And the factor 100 is just vastly exaggerated. The site seems to like to report very favorably of anything connected to Russia. --mfb (talk) 22:25, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
This is one of the disadvantages of living in third world countries - we don't speak Russian, and Russian scientists don't always translate their work. A lot of Russian leading-edge stuff is simply not translated for our personal convenience. So we have to make do with what's available in English and hope that some "reliable source" with deep pockets will forward the cash to translate something more to our liking. If Russia is building yet another humongous machine of some benefit to mankind, we should have at least some information on topic within Wikipedia. It's not much help if we just sit back in our rocking chairs, spitting into the spittoon, dismissing any clues that might lead to something useful. Even marginal clues can be upgraded as better information is released by the rocket scientists. Thanks! Santamoly (talk) 06:01, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Russia doesn't plan to build the FCC at all. They contribute to the planning of the thing that (if it gets built at all) would probably be built at CERN because you save a few billions on preaccelerators there. --mfb (talk) 12:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
Although you seem to be determined to knock down any mention of pending developments, you also appear to have some understanding of what's happening (although reluctant to take a position). Is it possible to mention any news of what Russia is planning to contribute? We both agree that news from reliable sources is scarce, but you want to suppress all such news whereas I'd like to see some news, even if it's a bit wobbly. My thinking is that Russia, while not a CERN member, obviously has tremendous achievements in this area and appears willing to contribute something; however, until someone credible starts translating, we're not going to have even the slightest clue as to what's coming along the pipeline. My original question was:"Would this be a useful factoid to include in the LHC article until it has legs enough to stand on its own?" I think it's still a valid question. Santamoly (talk) 18:20, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
No need for flying flags. The scientific/technological effort is truly international. If Russia is/will collaborate with brainpower, find a reliable reference and write a brief, concise statement about it. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 18:24, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
I don't want to suppress anything, but we should keep a balanced view here. More than 70 groups worldwide are looking into various aspects of FCC concepts. One of them is in Russia - so what? There is nothing special about this group, and I think we both don't want to list 70 groups individually. Also, the topic of this article is the LHC, not the FCC, and certainly not "everything that happens in accelerator physics". A comment on the FCC can be added to the CERN article. --mfb (talk) 22:22, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree with Mfb; If not a notable and outstanding contribution to CERN, then it does not belong to this article. BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:43, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Explain more about luminosity, collision rate, integrated luminosity

It would be great to use and explain eg [13] ? 2015 delivered 4.2 fb-1 (of integrated luminosity). 2016 aiming for 25 fb-1 (for P-P collisions [14]). - Rod57 (talk) 13:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Luminosity (scattering theory)? --mfb (talk) 15:05, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I can't find the part about how much they change they mass

Everyone I talk to seems to have an unshakable misunderstanding about what all the power in the collider is for. It's to make the particle more massive since the particle can't get to c, right? It would be instructive, I think, to mention at the top of the article how many times the mass is multiplied on this collider compared to older, smaller ones. Pb8bije6a7b6a3w (talk) 17:39, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

No mass changes. The concept of a relativistic mass (which would depend on velocity) is not used in physics any more. The energy at the LHC is higher than in other colliders, this is mentioned and compared to the previous record in the introduction ("almost 4 times more than the previous world record for a collider" with further increases later). --mfb (talk) 20:14, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

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Large Hadron Collider's Explosion

Didn't the Large Hadron Collider explode in September 2008? I would be very thankful if anyone can answer my question.

Checks Facts (talk) 21:00, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

No it did not. Some components got damaged, this is discussed in the article already. --mfb (talk) 10:59, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
There was a violent release of helium gas from a cryostat as a result of an electrical arc. Here are some photos of the damage. This is the relevant section of the article: Large_Hadron_Collider#Quench_incident, --Dukwon (talk) 13:14, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Dukwon Checks Facts (talk) 11:25, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
They call it a "quench" but in common terms it was an explosion (due to a manufacturing flaw in one of the magnets). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.21.64.18 (talk) 00:34, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Quenches happen all the time at the LHC, sometimes on purpose. Only one of them caused a sudden and violent evaporation of cryogenic fluid (i.e. an explosion). — dukwon (talk) (contribs) 07:40, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Needs a complete rewrite

The quality of this article is poor- it contains not only obsolete and incorrect information but omits a lot of significant (historical) information. There are several references to the (future) discovery of a particle (2012) that "may" be the Higgs Boson. In March 2013, the two teams (Atlas & CMS) announced that the properties of the particle were consistent with it being the Higgs. In lay terms, the particle is the Higgs Boson. I also want to comment on the Design section: it is awful. The 'original' design energy was 14 TeV. It failed to reach this until years of (cost unknown) upgrades. Also it omits the actual history of the design, including its initial (formal) design study groups (1980's) and the 21 country's who form the governing body. The failure to highlight the international (although except for Israel, exclusively European) member states, as well as the 70 associating countries is a pretty obvious flaw.98.21.64.18 (talk) 00:52, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

WP:DIY — dukwon (talk) (contribs) 07:57, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
Feel free to improve the article. Rewriting is also fine, but should be discussed before the article is changed. If you know German (or if you are just interested in how a structure can look like), you can have a look at the featured German article. --mfb (talk) 17:42, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Exact Funding Sources and Who Built It?

I came to the article to find out WHO paid for the LHC exactly, and how much was funded from each country that has participated. Secondly, since this is the world's single biggest machine, WHO built it, in terms of a general contractor or contractors who were capable of this level of construction? Were they also from different countries?Starhistory22 (talk) 10:19, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Way too complicated to discuss it accurately in the article. A large part of the hardware cost for the accelerator was paid from the CERN budget (see there for funding sources), but research centers and institutes from all over the world contributed a lot as well, especially via manpower, but also with hardware. The overall project was managed by CERN, many individual items were built by various contractors. --mfb (talk) 12:18, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Recording the particle trails

Exactly how the scatter patterns are recorded is not well explained. Is it film, like old-school chemical negatives, some chemical reaction? or is it some other way to observe the resultant pattern? Please explain with clear diagrams and photographs. Thanks.

This is an article about the accelerator, the detectors have their own articles. You can't use film for billions of tracks per second. The detectors use a variety of methods, including silicon detectors, scintillation detectors, transition radiation detectors, cherenkov detectors, time projection chambers, straw chambers and a few more. --mfb (talk) 05:36, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

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Original doesn't seem to exist any more. --mfb (talk) 02:08, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

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We don't need that reference any more. --mfb (talk) 23:39, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

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Found a new link for the broken one. --mfb (talk) 11:16, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

"Most complex experimental facility" not mentioned in reference

When I read "most complex experimental facility ever built" I immediately thought of the ISS and was curious to see the reference supporting this statement. I found that the reference does not make this claim. Moreover, this reference is from CERN, the builder and operator of LHC itself, so it's probably not an appropriate source for such claims. Personally, I do not doubt that LHC is the "world's largest and most powerful particle collider" or the "largest single machine in the world", but I think "most complex" would be difficult to prove. What do you think about removing the "most complex" verbiage? --SureJohn (talk) 16:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

No responses so I went ahead and removed it for now. SureJohn (talk) 23:14, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Whats happening in the 2019-2020 upgrade

Intro/lead says At the end of 2018, it entered a second two-year shutdown period. but article does not seem to say what is being done/upgraded and why, or if there is any shared work with the high luminosity upgrade (already started) planned to go live 2026 . - Rod57 (talk) 10:28, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

14 TeV if the magnets can handle it, a bit of preparation for HL-LHC, apart from that mainly upgrades for LHCb and ALICE. If I find the time I can describe this in the article. --mfb (talk) 03:34, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

What has the LHC achieved?

Slightly clickbait-y title, I know the LHC is doing important and complicated work which is described further down. But I think the lead of this article is decidedly missing a brief description of any notable discoveries the LHC has made over the ~10 years since it's been turned on.

Compare for example other large scientific facilities. The lead of LIGO has the section:

As of December 2018, LIGO has made eleven detections of gravitational waves, of which ten are from binary black hole mergers. The other event was the first detection of a collision of two neutron stars, on August 17, 2017 which simultaneously produced optical signals detectable by conventional telescopes. All eleven events were observed in data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO.

Or Very Large Telescope:

Among the pioneering observations carried out using the VLT are the first direct image of an exoplanet, the tracking of individual stars moving around the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, and observations of the afterglow of the furthest known gamma-ray burst.

By comparison the lead for this article talks about when the LHC has been online, what it's aims are (nothing about if it has achieved them), what collisions it's used and a long section about how much computing power is required. But nothing saying what's it's actually done. What particles has it discovered, what new science has it uncovered, what papers has it published, what unsolved questions has is answered? This must be one of the first things a lay person would want to know when coming to this article, and it's notable by it's absence. Even if the answer is nothing (or maybe nothing yet) surely it must be possible to add a sentence or two to the lead similar to those other articles. --2A02:C7D:118C:2600:8CF6:57C3:F6C5:A829 (talk) 00:18, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

LIGO or VLT are the whole experiment, while the LHC is the accelerator - the discoveries are made by the experiments. We could put key discoveries of these experiments in the lead, however. It is currently too long, something else should be moved out then. --mfb (talk) 01:51, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
That's fair, maybe a better comparison would be that the LHC is to ATLAS etc as the Paranal Observatory is to the VLT. I still think that's not made clear at all in the lead, especially as the LHC is described as a machine with specific aims, if it has aims then it's not unfair to ask if it's achieved them. Or would it be more accurate to say they are the aims of the experiments, which just use the LHC as a platform? As far as the public is concerned the LHC is the experiment, and while technically ATLAS and CMS were the ones that discovered the Higgs do you not think it's weird that's not mentioned in the lead of the main LHC article? --143.167.6.168 (talk) 16:21, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
At least the lead now makes it clear that these things are the goals of the experiments. --mfb (talk) 06:43, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
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