A little while back, JoAnne at Cosmic Variance reported on the status of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the giant next-generation accelerator that is the cover story for the current print issue of Seed. Particle experimentalist Gordon Watts reports in with some more technical details about the delay in the proposed turn-on schedule. He's also got a link to a PDF of a talk by someone associated with LHC, for those who really want to geek out.
The bottom line appears to be that this is just normal, prudent caution, and not really unexpected. Though the delay is a little disappointing to those hoping that the LHC will provide evidence for or against various untested theories.
(The post title is a Dan Brown reference, from Angels and Demons.)
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So, I was thinking, where are the cold alien intelligences who ought to be out there, studying us dispassionately, as if we were microbes...?
Well, what if we accidentally killed them all?
No, really.
Back in late July, I got email from a writer for Physics World magazine (which is sort of the UK equivalent of Physics Today), asking my opinion on a few questions relating to particle physics funding.
Hector writes in and asks about someone from Sheffield in the UK who says that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will create Dark Matter:
LHC Shows the Way workshop: general colloquium reviewing the LHC and the Higgs discovery.
Kyle Cramner from NYU: "We discovered the goddamned particle"
More slow live blog.
Cute opening video of LHC construction.