30 June, 2008

Atom-Smasher

What is Atom-Smasher?

Atom-Smasher or collider consists of a ring of supercooled magnets 17 miles in circumference attached to huge barrel-shaped detectors. The ring, which straddles the French and Swiss border, is buried 330 feet underground.

At full power, two beams of protons will race around the huge ring 11,000 times a second in opposite directions. They will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space.

What it is used for?

Scientists will use the collider to hunt for signs of the invisible "dark matter" and "dark energy" that make up more than 96 percent of the universe.

The theory could resolve many of physics' unanswered questions, but requires about 10 dimensions — far more than the three spatial dimensions our senses experience.

How much data being generated by the collider?

15 petabytes of data, the equivalent of a stack of CDs 12 miles tall which will require a high speed global network of computers to analyze the data.

Read more HERE.

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