Large Hadron Collider: 5 Things You Didn't Know

[Ichingcarpenter]

1- The Large Hadron Collider is kept colder than outer space

Accelerating charged particles like protons requires a powerful magnetic field, one that can only be produced by using magnets that are first cooled with liquid hydrogen and then supercooled with superfluid helium. Together, this cryogenic distribution system lowers the magnets to an astonishingly cold -456.34 °F (-271.3 °C), a temperature slightly colder than that of deep outer space (-454 °F / -270 °C).

2- The Large Hadron Collider may be trying to sabotage itself

OK.... you know about that one. http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2007/07/whats-new.html

3- The Large Hadron Collider could win Stephen Hawking his Nobel Prize

In 1974, Hawking published a paper in Nature called "Black Hole Explosions?" predicting that the death of a black hole would produce a burst of thermal radiation (now called Hawking radiation). Should the LHC, as some fear, create a mini black hole (the odds aren't very good) and it dies according to prediction, many agree that it would earn Hawking the Nobel Prize in Physics.

4- The Large Hadron Collider will contain the hottest spot in the solar system

Officials expect two proton beams to collide 600 million times every second; each collision will create temperatures estimated to be about 100,000 times hotter than the temperature at the core of our sun, which normally runs at around 15,000,000 Kelvin. That equates to a scorching 27 trillion °F (15 trillion °C), so it's fortunate that those moments won't last more than about one trillionth of one second.


5- The Large Hadron Collider relies on Einstein's famous equation
The last thing you didn't know about the LHC is that it won't violate the laws of nature.


http://ca.askmen.com/entertainment/special_feature_400/444b_large-hadron-collider-5-things-you-didnt-know.html