Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
JF Mezei wrote:[color=blue]
> AEF wrote:
>[color=green]
>> As for running the accelerator itself and its detectors and what not
>> -- I really don't know. I know that people in the physics group I was
>> in at graduate school used to use VAX/VMS and recently (if not still)
>> use Linux to analyze their data. Places where I did experiments used[/color]
>
> Particle accelerators is not something you buy at Walmart.[/color]
I think Walmart might sell equipment that could be classified as a
particle accelerator. (But the particles involved are not subatomic!)
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
[color=blue]
> I think Walmart might sell equipment that could be classified as a
> particle accelerator. (But the particles involved are not subatomic!)[/color]
Well, a CRT based TV set of yore already qualifies as a particle
sccelerator. Although the particles are just electrons,
and the energy range is keV, not GeV or above.
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
AEF schrieb:
[color=blue]
>
> As for running the accelerator itself and its detectors and what not
> -- I really don't know. I know that people in the physics group I was
> in at graduate school used to use VAX/VMS and recently (if not still)
> use Linux to analyze their data. Places where I did experiments used
> VAX/VMS to analyze data. What did they use to run the accelerators?
> Some places, like the lab at Ohio U., used their own contraptions. In
> fact, many of them may be like that. I think the actual equipment in
> use is more important. It's been a long time since I was involved with
> such stuff.
>
> So I wouldn't read too much into this.[/color]
Well, I happen to work in a lab similar to Cern,
though somewhat smaller.
IT evolution in sites like that is not that much
different from the rest of the world.
VMS and mainframes were ubiquitous at the end of the 1980s,
but that changed rapidly in the course of the 1990s
in favour of Unix and later Linux.
In such organisations, the various divisions may have different
preferences as far as their IT is concerned, so the science divisions
might run some *X, while the PR guys run M$.
Accelerator controls usually have several IT levels,
where the lowest level runs some realtime OS (e.g. VME-based),
whilst monitoring / visualization may well run on M$
(or even VMS in days gone by).
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
In article <48c79086$0$12394$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei wrote:
BTW, sorry to hear about your accident - no permanent damage, I trust?
Did the eggs survive? I hear you have to break a lot of them to make an
omelet.
:-)
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
Brad Hamilton wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <48c79086$0$12394$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei wrote:
> BTW, sorry to hear about your accident - no permanent damage, I trust?[/color]
Rear wheel's rim is a goner. Haven't checked yet, but I think no spokes
broke. The car's bumper hit my rear wheel and seems to have "locked in"
and just pushed the wheel on the wet road. At one point, I started to go
sideways and my backpack landed on the guy's hood and I guess I then
just slid down to the ground. I was *completely* unhurt. (perhaps a bit
of a state of shock). The backpack probably took the brunt of any impact.
[color=blue]
> Did the eggs survive?[/color]
Yes they did ! All of them intact ! But the tiramisu cake (frozen) was
squashed, so I have a pretty good idea where on the backpack the impact
occured. The juice carton survived, but showed some signs of "stress"
(for lack of better word).
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
In article <c9e551c3-1a21-466f-9cf2-851f39cc3ab5@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, AEF <spamsink2001@yahoo.com> writes:[color=blue]
>On Sep 10, 5:15 am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
>[...][color=green]
>> BTW:
>>
>> $ curl -Ihttp://www.cern.ch
>> HTTP/1.1 302 Found
>> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:11:05 GMT
>> Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
>> X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
>> X-AspNet-Version: 1.1.4322
>> Location:[url]http://public.web.cern.ch/public/[/url]
>> Cache-Control: private
>> Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
>> Content-Length: 150
>>
>> And I thought CERN was populated by intelligent and educated people who
>> would know not to use microsoft products.[/color]
>
>That's only their website. I seriously doubt the physicists themselves
>run it, let alone set it up. They probably hired the services of some
>company to do it, but I'm not sure. Besides, their talent is physics,
>not computer shopping. And how would people in this newsgroup, and any
>other IT people, no matter how "intelligent", be able to pick out
>equipment and set up the largest, most powerful accelerator facility
>ever built? (OK, that's a slightly bogus argument, but physicists
>don't give such matters a whole lot of thought. And keeping a website
>running is far less important than the accelerator itself.)
>[/color]
(Kinda funny argument, given that webservers were invented at CERN.)
[color=blue]
>As for running the accelerator itself and its detectors and what not
>-- I really don't know. I know that people in the physics group I was
>in at graduate school used to use VAX/VMS and recently (if not still)
>use Linux to analyze their data. Places where I did experiments used
>VAX/VMS to analyze data. What did they use to run the accelerators?
>Some places, like the lab at Ohio U., used their own contraptions. In
>fact, many of them may be like that. I think the actual equipment in
>use is more important. It's been a long time since I was involved with
>such stuff.
>
>So I wouldn't read too much into this.[/color]
I'm at SLAC. (First site in North America to have a web site, which
originally ran on now-mothballed big IBM iron.) There are multiple
accelerators and equipment here. In my division, SSRL, we have a synchrotron
ring and a dedicated injector. Those are primarily run by VMS systems. The big
Linac is primarily run by VMS systems.
I'm given to understand that the accelerator physics community has largely
gotten behind a control system called EPICS, which is developed on Unix
systems, and many new installations therefore use Unix/Linux systems. People
here have ported Epics to VMS. Some of our experimental stations run on Unix,
and we have a big facility that, last I looked, was on Irix.
SLAC has an assortment of web servers for internal and external use, and
the ones run by central IT are on Windows (mostly) and some Linux systems.
SSRL's webservers (which I'm in charge of) are VMS-based (Alpha and
Itanium). What runs your webserver has very little to do with what runs
your physics hardware.
-- Alan
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
In article <031775f9$0$2159$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@vaxination.ca> writes:[color=blue]
>AEF wrote:
>[color=green]
>> As for running the accelerator itself and its detectors and what not
>> -- I really don't know. I know that people in the physics group I was
>> in at graduate school used to use VAX/VMS and recently (if not still)
>> use Linux to analyze their data. Places where I did experiments used[/color]
>
>Particle accelerators is not something you buy at Walmart. How much of
>the hardware they have can be "off the shelf" ? Would they require
>special custom built PCI cards to stuff into 8086s running whatever to
>control (for instance) the magnets all around the vacuum tube where
>particles travel ? Or would they be able to use fairly standard lab
>equipment to have some computer very precisely control the magnets ?
>(and whatever else).[/color]
I'm not an expert, but the short answer would be that it depends on your
design and your existing hardware. SSRL inherited the early-1970s SPEAR
ring and has been through two massive upgrades, but there's still a lot
of custom hardware and electronics in it, I think. If you started out to
build it from scratch, you could do a lot more with off-the-shelf systems.
(Note that these projects are *huge* and take a long time to put together.
If you started to build SPEAR now - not that big of a machine - you might
come online in 2017 if you were lucky. That would be about five incompatible
Windows architectures from now.)
There are some vendors (*cough* Kinetic Systems *cough*) who sell interface
cards and no longer provide VMS drivers, and who don't upgrade the existing
drivers for new VMS versions.
-- Alan
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
In article <c9e551c3-1a21-466f-9cf2-851f39cc3ab5@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, AEF <spamsink2001@yahoo.com> writes:[color=blue]
>
> As for running the accelerator itself and its detectors and what not
> -- I really don't know. I know that people in the physics group I was
> in at graduate school used to use VAX/VMS and recently (if not still)
> use Linux to analyze their data.[/color]
I don't know about running the accelerator, but when I was introduced
to particle physics I was told that you "collect your data on a
PDP-11 and analyze it on a PDP-10".
That was a couple years before DECshipped the first 11/780. The
particle physics group bought the cheapest system DEC would ship:
1MB RAM, 64MB disk (I think), one 9 track, one LA36, no FPA. We
added 1 DZ-11.
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
On Sep 14, 1:05*am, wins...@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Alan Winston -
SSRL Central Computing) wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <c9e551c3-1a21-466f-9cf2-851f39cc3...@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups..com>, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>
>
>
>[color=green]
> >On Sep 10, 5:15 am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> >[...][color=darkred]
> >> BTW:[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> >> $ curl -Ihttp://www.cern.ch
> >> HTTP/1.1 302 Found
> >> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:11:05 GMT
> >> Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
> >> X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
> >> X-AspNet-Version: 1.1.4322
> >> Location:[url]http://public.web.cern.ch/public/[/url]
> >> Cache-Control: private
> >> Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
> >> Content-Length: 150[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> >> And I thought CERN was populated by intelligent and educated people who
> >> would know not to use microsoft products.[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
> >That's only their website. I seriously doubt the physicists themselves
> >run it, let alone set it up. They probably hired the services of some
> >company to do it, but I'm not sure. Besides, their talent is physics,
> >not computer shopping. And how would people in this newsgroup, and any
> >other IT people, no matter how "intelligent", be able to pick out
> >equipment and set up the largest, most powerful accelerator facility
> >ever built? (OK, that's a slightly bogus argument, but physicists
> >don't give such matters a whole lot of thought. And keeping a website
> >running is far less important than the accelerator itself.)[/color]
>
> (Kinda funny argument, given that webservers were invented at CERN.)
>[color=green]
> >As for running the accelerator itself and its detectors and what not
> >-- I really don't know. I know that people in the physics group I was
> >in at graduate school used to use VAX/VMS and recently (if not still)
> >use Linux to analyze their data. Places where I did experiments used
> >VAX/VMS to analyze data. What did they use to run the accelerators?
> >Some places, like the lab at Ohio U., used their own contraptions. In
> >fact, many of them may be like that. I think the actual equipment in
> >use is more important. It's been a long time since I was involved with
> >such stuff.[/color]
>[color=green]
> >So I wouldn't read too much into this.[/color]
>
> I'm at SLAC. * (First site in North America to have a web site, which
> originally ran on now-mothballed big IBM iron.) * There are multiple
> accelerators and equipment here. *In my division, SSRL, we have a synchrotron
> ring and a dedicated injector. Those are primarily run by VMS systems. *The big
> Linac is primarily run by VMS systems.
>
> I'm given to understand that the accelerator physics community has largely
> gotten behind a control system called EPICS, which is developed on Unix
> systems, and many new installations therefore use Unix/Linux systems. *People
> here have ported Epics to VMS. *Some of our experimental stations run on Unix,
> and we have a big facility that, last I looked, was on Irix.
>
> SLAC has an assortment of web servers for internal and external use, and
> the ones run by central IT are on Windows (mostly) and some Linux systems.. *
> SSRL's webservers (which I'm in charge of) are VMS-based (Alpha and
> Itanium). * What runs your webserver has very little to do with what runs
> your physics hardware.
>
> -- Alan- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -[/color]
Has the linear accelerator that paralles the San Andreas been shaken
not stirred lately?
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
On Sep 15, 12:51*pm, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob
Koehler) wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <c9e551c3-1a21-466f-9cf2-851f39cc3...@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups..com>, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>
>[color=green]
> > As for running the accelerator itself and its detectors and what not
> > -- I really don't know. I know that people in the physics group I was
> > in at graduate school used to use VAX/VMS and recently (if not still)
> > use Linux to analyze their data.[/color][/color]
Uh, they phased out VAX/VMS in the 1990's and phased in Linux and both
were to analyze data. At least one accel. lab I know was switching
from VMS to Unix for online data acquisition ca. 1990, but that's the
word when I was there ca. 1987. As for what ran the accelerator
itself, I never knew. Others ran it at the other end of the very long
building. All we cared was that we got beam.
Got beam? :-D
[color=blue]
>
> * *I don't know about running the accelerator, but when I was introduced
> * *to particle physics I was told that you "collect your data on a
> * *PDP-11 and analyze it on a PDP-10".
>
> * *That was a couple years before DECshipped the first 11/780. *The
> * *particle physics group bought the cheapest system DEC would ship:
> * *1MB RAM, 64MB disk (I think), one 9 track, one LA36, no FPA. *We
> * *added 1 DZ-11.[/color]
No FPA?! When I was "replaying my data", our FPA died and I actually
felt it in reduced speed. Then I measured it and -- lo and behold it
went from ~ 27 events / CPU-sec down to ~ 18 events / CPU-sec, IIRC. I
asked system management to look into it and they said the FPA died. I
didn't even know we had one, much less that there were such
creatures.
So what did you have? A VAX 11/750?
AEF
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
In article <74117e75-f9b6-469e-a3c6-57781f61d242@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, AEF <spamsink2001@yahoo.com> writes:[color=blue]
>
> So what did you have? A VAX 11/750?[/color]
No. As I said it was an 11/780. 11/750 had not yet been announced.
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
In article <003c2467-7e1d-44db-aef0-d4b35e140a7e@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, DaveG <david.gudewicz@abbott.com> writes:[color=blue]
>On Sep 14, 1:05=A0am, wins...@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Alan Winston -[/color]
(snippage of my quote)
[color=blue]
>
>Has the linear accelerator that paralles the San Andreas been shaken
>not stirred lately?[/color]
Parallels? I think it _crosses_ it.
We got whacked very hard in 1989; no particular earthquake trouble since, as
far as I know. (My part of the lab, the synchrotron part, now runs a dedicated
injector - an accelerator of its own, although it's circular, not linear -
so we aren't at the mercy of the big linac. The LCLS project, finishing
construction now, does use the first third of the linac.
-- Alan
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
On Sep 12, 7:34*am, "Ken Robinson" <kenrb...@gmail.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> See this site:
>
> [url]http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/[/url]
>
> Ken[/color]
Actually, we don't need the LHC to end the world; Wall St. is doing a
pretty good job of it right now!
And if things continue to get worse, many will probably prefer the LHC
to end the world to save them the trouble of banging their PC's at the
windows so that they can break them so that they can jump out!
AEF (And now, something even more off topic!)
Two-level nested parenthetical remarks:
Superman! And who (disguised as Clark Kent [a reporter for a great
metropolitan newspaper]) fights a never-ending battle for truth,
justice, and the American Way.
Da - da -da-da-daaaaaah (repeat], etc.
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
On Sep 16, 9:42*pm, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Sep 12, 7:34*am, "Ken Robinson" <kenrb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
> > See this site:[/color]
>[color=green]
> >[url]http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/[/url][/color]
>[color=green]
> > Ken[/color]
>
> Actually, we don't need the LHC to end the world; Wall St. is doing a
> pretty good job of it right now!
>
> And if things continue to get worse, many will probably prefer the LHC
> to end the world to save them the trouble of banging their PC's at the
> windows so that they can break them so that they can jump out!
>
> AEF *(And now, something even more off topic!)
>
> Two-level nested parenthetical remarks:
>
> Superman! And who (disguised as Clark Kent [a reporter for a great
> metropolitan newspaper]) fights a never-ending battle for truth,
> justice, and the American Way.
>
> Da - da *-da-da-daaaaaah (repeat], etc.[/color]
Uh, make that
Superman! And who (disguised as Clark Kent [mild mannered reporter for
a great
metropolitan newspaper]) fights a never-ending battle for truth,
justice, and the American Way.
da - Da -Da-Da-Daaaaaah (repeat], etc.
AEF
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
On Sep 17, 6:56*am, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Sep 16, 9:42*pm, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>[color=green]
> > On Sep 12, 7:34*am, "Ken Robinson" <kenrb...@gmail.com> wrote:[/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > See this site:[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > >[url]http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/[/url][/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > Ken[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
> > Actually, we don't need the LHC to end the world; Wall St. is doing a
> > pretty good job of it right now![/color]
>[color=green]
> > And if things continue to get worse, many will probably prefer the LHC
> > to end the world to save them the trouble of banging their PC's at the
> > windows so that they can break them so that they can jump out![/color]
>[color=green]
> > AEF *(And now, something even more off topic!)[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Two-level nested parenthetical remarks:[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Superman! And who (disguised as Clark Kent [a reporter for a great
> > metropolitan newspaper]) fights a never-ending battle for truth,
> > justice, and the American Way.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Da - da *-da-da-daaaaaah (repeat], etc.[/color]
>
> Uh, make that
>
> Superman! And who (disguised as Clark Kent [mild mannered reporter for
> a great
> metropolitan newspaper]) fights a never-ending battle for truth,
> justice, and the American Way.
>
> da - Da *-Da-Da-Daaaaaah (repeat], etc.
>
> AEF- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -[/color]
You forgot: Can bend steel in his bare hands and change the course of
might rivers. ;-)
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
On Sep 17, 10:45*am, DaveG <david.gudew...@abbott.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Sep 17, 6:56*am, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>[color=green]
> > On Sep 16, 9:42*pm, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> wrote:[/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > On Sep 12, 7:34*am, "Ken Robinson" <kenrb...@gmail.com> wrote:[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > > See this site:[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > >[url]http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/[/url][/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > > Ken[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > Actually, we don't need the LHC to end the world; Wall St. is doing a
> > > pretty good job of it right now![/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > And if things continue to get worse, many will probably prefer the LHC
> > > to end the world to save them the trouble of banging their PC's at the
> > > windows so that they can break them so that they can jump out![/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > AEF *(And now, something even more off topic!)[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > Two-level nested parenthetical remarks:[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > Superman! And who (disguised as Clark Kent [a reporter for a great
> > > metropolitan newspaper]) fights a never-ending battle for truth,
> > > justice, and the American Way.[/color][/color]
>[color=green][color=darkred]
> > > Da - da *-da-da-daaaaaah (repeat], etc.[/color][/color]
>[color=green]
> > Uh, make that[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Superman! And who (disguised as Clark Kent [mild mannered reporter for
> > a great
> > metropolitan newspaper]) fights a never-ending battle for truth,
> > justice, and the American Way.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > da - Da *-Da-Da-Daaaaaah (repeat], etc.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > AEF- Hide quoted text -[/color]
>[color=green]
> > - Show quoted text -[/color]
>
> You forgot: *Can bend steel in his bare hands and change the course of
> might rivers. *;-)[/color]
I believe its: ...Superman! Who can bend steel in his bare hands,
change the course of mighty rivers, and who...
Yep, you're right. I missed that part between "Superman!" and "And
who...". I thought there was some problem with that "And". Thanks.
And of course I should have put in the ellipses.
AEF
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
On Sep 15, 5:52 pm, koeh...@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob
Koehler) wrote:[color=blue]
> In article <74117e75-f9b6-469e-a3c6-57781f61d...@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, AEF <spamsink2...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>
>[color=green]
> > So what did you have? A VAX 11/750?[/color]
>
> No. As I said it was an 11/780. 11/750 had not yet been announced.[/color]
Well, you wrote:
"
I don't know about running the accelerator, but when I was
introduced
to particle physics I was told that you "collect your data on a
PDP-11 and analyze it on a PDP-10".
That was a couple years before DECshipped the first 11/780. The
particle physics group bought the cheapest system DEC would ship:
1MB RAM, 64MB disk (I think), one 9 track, one LA36, no FPA. We
added 1 DZ-11.
"
All you said here was that you used the pdp a couple of years before
the first 11/780. Then you said the cheapest DEC system, but not when.
When you said the cheapest system it sounded to me like it could be
any system, not just the 11/780, even if it was at the time of the
first 11/780. DEC didn't have anything cheaper than a VAX 11/780? Even
a non-VAX (or does the LA36 only work on a VAX)?
Sorry, I guess I read it wrong or just didn't know enough history --
or both! or whatever.
AEF
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
Question about accelerators:
So, you have one big 27km loop.
Do they inject particles and accelerate the even particles clockwise,
and the odd particles counterclockwise, and each side has 13km to
accelerate until they hit at the other end of the loop ?
Or are they able to put particles into collision-free paths around the
loop so that they can each travel/accelerate for long periods, circling
the loops many times and only once they've gotten to the right speed, do
they press some button that changes the course ever so slightly so that
particles in opposite directions will the collide just under all the
monitoring equipment ?
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
JF Mezei wrote:[color=blue]
> Question about accelerators:
>
> So, you have one big 27km loop.
>
> Do they inject particles and accelerate the even particles clockwise,
> and the odd particles counterclockwise, and each side has 13km to
> accelerate until they hit at the other end of the loop ?
>
> Or are they able to put particles into collision-free paths around the
> loop so that they can each travel/accelerate for long periods, circling
> the loops many times and only once they've gotten to the right speed, do
> they press some button that changes the course ever so slightly so that
> particles in opposite directions will the collide just under all the
> monitoring equipment ?[/color]
It is the latter:
The two beams in LHC travel in their own vacuum tube each (inside the
magnets).
Injection and accellaration takes some time until stable beams are
stored. Only then collisions start: at the interaction points inside the
detectors the two tubes cross and a few protons collide (this crossing
is steered by a kind of "kicker" magnets). The beams are not single
particles but bunches, so they are not destroyed immediately, but this
goes on for many hours until a new filling is needed.
--
Joseph Huber - [url]http://www.huber-joseph.de[/url]
Re: OT: The end of the world in roughly 3 hours
Joseph Huber wrote:[color=blue]
> JF Mezei wrote:[color=green]
>> Question about accelerators:
>>
>> So, you have one big 27km loop.
>>
>> Do they inject particles and accelerate the even particles clockwise,
>> and the odd particles counterclockwise, and each side has 13km to
>> accelerate until they hit at the other end of the loop ?
>>
>> Or are they able to put particles into collision-free paths around the
>> loop so that they can each travel/accelerate for long periods, circling
>> the loops many times and only once they've gotten to the right speed, do
>> they press some button that changes the course ever so slightly so that
>> particles in opposite directions will the collide just under all the
>> monitoring equipment ?[/color]
>
> It is the latter:
> The two beams in LHC travel in their own vacuum tube each (inside the
> magnets).
> Injection and accellaration takes some time until stable beams are
> stored. Only then collisions start: at the interaction points inside the
> detectors the two tubes cross and a few protons collide (this crossing
> is steered by a kind of "kicker" magnets). The beams are not single
> particles but bunches, so they are not destroyed immediately, but this
> goes on for many hours until a new filling is needed.
>[/color]
Also have a look into Cern's ask-the-expert pages at:
[url]http://askanexpert.web.cern.ch/AskAnExpert/en/Accelerators/Howaccel-en.html#7[/url]
--
Joseph Huber - [url]http://www.huber-joseph.de[/url]