The Man Taking Over the Large Hadron Collider (theguardian.com) 29
Mark Thomson, a professor of experimental particle physics at the University of Cambridge, takes over as CERN's director general this week, and one of his first major decisions during his five-year tenure will be shutting down the Large Hadron Collider for an extended upgrade. The shutdown starts in June to make way for the high-luminosity LHC -- a major overhaul involving powerful new superconducting magnets that will squeeze the collider's proton beams and increase their brightness. The upgrade will raise collisions tenfold and strengthen the detectors to better capture subtle signs of new physics. The machine won't restart until Thomson's term is nearly over.
Thomson is far from disconsolate about the downtime. "The machine is running brilliantly and we're recording huge amounts of data," he told The Guardian. "There's going to be plenty to analyse over the period." Beyond the upgrade, Thomson must shepherd CERN's plans for the Future Circular Collider, a proposed 91km machine more than three times the size of the current collider. Member states vote on the project in 2028; the first phase carries an estimated price tag of 15 billion Swiss francs (nearly $19 billion).
Thomson is far from disconsolate about the downtime. "The machine is running brilliantly and we're recording huge amounts of data," he told The Guardian. "There's going to be plenty to analyse over the period." Beyond the upgrade, Thomson must shepherd CERN's plans for the Future Circular Collider, a proposed 91km machine more than three times the size of the current collider. Member states vote on the project in 2028; the first phase carries an estimated price tag of 15 billion Swiss francs (nearly $19 billion).
Re:So he's paid to do nothing for 5 years then ? (Score:5, Insightful)
So he's paid to do nothing for 5 years then ?
That's an even cushier job than Slashdot "editor".
Your premise is offensively stupid. The idea that the director of a 27km particle-accelerator undergoing an upgrade to 10x its efficacy will be idle during that time is absurd. This guy will make more, and more impactful decisions in this period than you will in your entire lifetime. One action, one phone call, one assignment of staff to address something like a cost overrun or delay or equipment shortage or accident will outweigh your impact on humanity. And - to be clear - mine.
By all means, make fun of Slashdot's editors. But please try to not use a colossally moronic foundation for doing so. It changes what could have been a funny comment into one that is exceptionally dumb.
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I HAVE SEEN THE TRUTH of the universe. I have spoken to gods you will never even know exist.
That is just a side effect of the Thorazine.
Re: So he's paid to do nothing for 5 years then ? (Score:2)
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Do fuck off.
Okay. I fucked off, and now I'm back.
Was that supposed to make your comment somehow become less poorly executed? I'm asking because as far as I can tell, it hasn't. I even fucked off twice, just to be sure.
Nitpicky phrasing department: (Score:3)
If they know it's going to happen, then what kind of decision is that? I'm pretty sure it's already decided, and he is the inheritor of the job. The original article says it better:
Re: Nitpicky phrasing department: (Score:2)
The decision to do it was made in 2011, and they've been building the parts that will go into it, and they'd already committed to doing the installation at the end of the current operating period, but the schedule for ending that period is "mid-2026", so he gets to be the one who makes that date exact, with people hoping to get one last experiment that doesn't need the upgrade in before they have to wait a long time.
the man (Score:2)
OOOh, the man, the man.
Wait... (Score:2)
It's not Doc Ock?
Re: (Score:2)
Hadrons /= Cosmic Rays
They have a few space-based cosmic ray detectors and many on the ground. It might be a tad difficult to finagle a 27km ring of magnets and vacuum pumps with appropriate shielding into orbit... not sure how many launches that would take,
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Most cosmic rays consist of protons, which are indeed hadrons.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Google AI:
Not hadrons
Cosmic rays are hadrons
Cosmic rays are not hadrons, but rather high-energy particles that originate from outside the Solar System. They include protons, atomic nuclei, and other particles that move through space at nearly the speed of light. Upon impact with Earth's atmosphere, cosmic rays produce showers of secondary particles, some of which reach the surface. The primary cosmic rays are mostly protons, with a minority of helium nuclei and trace amounts
I was taught ... (Score:4, Funny)
This "Large Hadron" collider must be a gigantic con!
timeline (Score:1)
They may be hoping that this upgrade will jump us back to the real timeline, but I bet we end up even farther off.
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Tell me you're joking
The fact that LHC produces a small amount of Hadrons annually, and the tiny 'quantum black holes' it generates don't cause time travel. Actually, regular black holes probably don't even cause time travel (being that the nearest is like 1,560 light years... it'll take a little bit to get to it and launch some poor soul into it... and we won't know what happens to that poor soul because black holes eat all the information preventing us from knowing what happened to the dude (as far as we
Re: (Score:1)
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Has the LHC accomplished a single thing yet that benefits people at all ... or even a hint of doing so?
Depends whether you consider knowledge a benefit. Seems to be about even odds on that.
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