LHC: large hadron collider

We visited the LHC today, the large hadron collider. For those of you that may not be physic junkies, hadrons are a family of particles that includes protons and neutrons. It includes all the different experiments, such as ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb, and many others. The LHC is a system of tunnels that covers an area from Switzerland and into France. It is 27 km long, just around 17 miles. (We obviously only toured the first 100 meters). It is about 100 meters below the ground and has two long pipes running through the entire distance. These pipes will have a beam of protons running through it, and the particles collide where the experiments are. Each of the different experiments are attempting to use the same collision to find different information. One of the beams has protons running in one direction, and the other beam is running protons the other way. The superconducting magnets steer the protons through the pipes, to make sure the protons curve to the shape of the beam. If the superconducting magnets where not present, the protons could run right out of the pipes and even through the walls.

If for some reason, there is a security issue inside the LHC, the beam of protons is spread out, the magnets help guide the beams to spread out. Because if a person were to get near the LHC while it was running, they could get huge amount of radiation.