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Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The LHC Game

Wonder what all the LHC magnets are good for? Dream of finetuning them by hand?! Ever wanted to push The Red Button? Then the LHC Game is for you!


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9 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:30 AM, February 21, 2007

    now who said particle physics was difficult ?
    a piece of pizza really !

    at least now we know our public funds are well spent :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rae Ann8:31 AM, February 21, 2007

    That was really fun. I'll have to show it to my 11 year old. Thanks for finding it!

    Have a good day!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:31 AM, February 21, 2007

    DON'T! I REPEAT, DON'T PRESS THE RED BUTTON!

    http://www.changar.com/archives/redbutton.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. Luboš Motl11:48 AM, February 21, 2007

    More flash from CERN

    ReplyDelete
  5. QUASAR93:03 PM, February 21, 2007

    Wow awesome!
    Bee, got all the calibrations right, hit the button, and I think I may have just seen a new virtual particle

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sabine Hossenfelder9:47 PM, February 21, 2007

    Hi Anonymous,

    now who said particle physics was difficult ?

    Yeah, who said that?


    Hey Quasar,

    that's funny, I just thought about virtual particles. The 'Ask the Experts' site of the March SciAm issue has the question 'Do the virtual particles in quantum mechanics really exist?' with an answer by Gordon Kane, who says 'Virtual particles are indeed real'. It makes me think. I mean, in quantum mechanics, we don't even 'really' have particles to begin with. His following explanation makes quite clear what he means with his answer (that virtual contributions like self-energy corrections have been experimentally confirmed), but still. I wouldn't even say the lines in Feynman diagrams are 'really' particles. Anyway. What's your opinion?

    Best,

    B.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sabine Hossenfelder10:16 PM, February 21, 2007

    here is the reference to SciAm. Interestingly it seems they have altered the original question for the print version. In the online version, the question is

    Are virtual particles really constantly popping in and out of existence? Or are they merely a mathematical bookkeeping device for quantum mechanics?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Arun11:13 PM, February 21, 2007

    If the QM wave function represents information we have about the system then virtual particles represent information as well, and that is not necessarily the same as "what is real".

    ReplyDelete
  9. CarlBrannen2:34 AM, February 22, 2007

    Loved the party afterwards.

    ReplyDelete

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