The Large Hadron Collider is about to turn useful, people. Having recently jacked up its particle acceleration power to create 3.5 TeV (trillion electron volts) collisions, the researchers are today pressing ahead with plans to go to a full 7 TeV, which -- you won't be surprised to hear -- has never been done before. Provided the requisite 3.5 TeV per beam is reached, sustained and properly channeled into creating useful collisions, CERN will finally have the data it needs to start its long-awaited physics program based off the findings provided by the LHC. Best of all? The latest world record attempt is being broadcast live over the web right now so why not hit up that link below to witness some history in the making?
We'll keep updating this post as the event goes along, come past the break to see the latest.
8.38AM CET -- Hello! It wouldn't be the LHC without something going wonky and sure enough, we're told a power converter went down while things were ramping up this morning. Not to worry though, apparently these things happen often, and will be overcome without much fuss. First collisions are expected in about two hours.
8.56AM -- They've lost a beam. Cryogenics problems have caused one of the beams to go astray, meaning that the ramping process will have to be restarted. It's been four minutes now and they've yet to determine what the particular cause was or where that beam went. People near the Franco-Swiss border should probably remain indoors this morning.
9.40AM -- Time until the collisions is being filled with tours of the experiment control rooms. Lots of trendy people in there, wearing checked shirts, scruffy jumpers and denim jackets -- and hey, a dude named Wolfram! This is like a bad Bond movie.
10.09AM -- Earlier issue has been identified as an "electrical perturbation" that took out a couple of sectors of the LHC. The magnets in the relevant areas are presently being reset, which should take about an hour, to be followed by a new beam being injected and then ramping starting anew. Judging by all the interviews they're doing, we suspect they might be stretching this thing out just to give all of their physicists some screen time.
We'll keep updating this post as the event goes along, come past the break to see the latest.
8.38AM CET -- Hello! It wouldn't be the LHC without something going wonky and sure enough, we're told a power converter went down while things were ramping up this morning. Not to worry though, apparently these things happen often, and will be overcome without much fuss. First collisions are expected in about two hours.
8.56AM -- They've lost a beam. Cryogenics problems have caused one of the beams to go astray, meaning that the ramping process will have to be restarted. It's been four minutes now and they've yet to determine what the particular cause was or where that beam went. People near the Franco-Swiss border should probably remain indoors this morning.
9.40AM -- Time until the collisions is being filled with tours of the experiment control rooms. Lots of trendy people in there, wearing checked shirts, scruffy jumpers and denim jackets -- and hey, a dude named Wolfram! This is like a bad Bond movie.
10.09AM -- Earlier issue has been identified as an "electrical perturbation" that took out a couple of sectors of the LHC. The magnets in the relevant areas are presently being reset, which should take about an hour, to be followed by a new beam being injected and then ramping starting anew. Judging by all the interviews they're doing, we suspect they might be stretching this thing out just to give all of their physicists some screen time.
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