http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11711228

Hey JB, good work! Got anything to tell us about this?, I'd love to hear it!

(Also, if you have any killer images I would whimper in happiness)

Now he can make an apple pie from scratch!

<3 carl sagan

The youtube song has been repeating in my head since I read that post earlier.

haha

lead ion experiements, to be honest it's not really my thing and anyhow at the moment I'm totally and utterly bogged down with writing (or not in this case) my thesis while at the same time having physics coordinators moan at me for not updating stuff or doing this and that...

Briefly though, they are doing the lead ion collisions to look for stuff called quark-gluon plasma. Time wise, from the big bang, this stuff comes after the proton-proton collisions that we have been doing and is basically at the stage where more complex atoms started to form. That's about all I can remember off the top of my head.

anyhow, I've been looking for a good excuse for some much needed procrastination so I'll go find some fancy pictures.

edit for the images.

Thinking about it I better do some quick explanation.

The first two pictures are the heavy ion collisions and what your first thought will probably be...that's just a mess and you'd be right. If you compare the top two images to the one at the bottom, which is a proton-proton collision (and a top quark candidate event...what I'm looking at) you'll see the big difference in the amount of matter around.

This is a perfect example of the difference in time before right after the big bang (proton-proton collisions) and just a few moments later, talking something like 10^-7 seconds after the big bang for heavy ion and something like 10^-12 (and less) for proton-proton collisions.

If you want a bit more info just ask away.

i think its amazing.

I never knew u could use such a high energy density to instigate a quark plasma, not just general fusion/proton plasma.

Now i understand the idea of how the 4 fundamental forces combine above certain energies. Electro-Strong Nuclear force COMBO



so, er, anything useful we can extract from these experiments yet? / douche response

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Massassi News 5, a first look scoop from our inside man, Poley in the field.

Are we all dead?

simple answer, nope.

it's all "blue sky" research at the moment, I wouldn't expect any knowledge that comes out of the data from the experiments to be used for probably 20-50+ years.

My guess is that the heavy ion data might be used sooner in some of the upcoming fusion experiments in helping model/shape the plasma, but that's maybe a long shot, but who knows.

The data from the proton-proton collisions...well it pretty much took a generation (and then some) for our knowledge from the early electron experimenets to filter through into what we do now.

The electron was formly discovered around 1900 I think and it took physicists like Rutherford in the early 1910's to further understand the structure of the atom and the electron which lead to the first theories on quantum mechanics. Those same theories underpin a lot of the semi-conductor and atomic industry over the past 50-60 years so you probably want to think along those lines for a timeline.

We're at the point where we can move around individual atoms and molecules which we first experimented with nearly 100 years ago. We're designing computer chips that are getting closer and closer to the limits where quantum tunnelling will play an increasing role in leakage current from computer chips (basically electrons start jumping between "walls" in the circuitry).

I haven't got a clue when...heck even IF we'll ever be able to control/move at the sub-atomic level without something the size of a particle acclerator but it'll need a lot of time for people far far cleverer than me to get their head around the data.

and no we aren't all dead....yet.

Were we ever alive?

Is this the real life?

Am I your fantasy?


no wait

quite apt that we go to Queen lyrics, Dr. Brian May was an astrophysicist after all

Yeah, not honorary or anything. Quite an interesting caught in a landslide