This isn't directly related to nuclear power but I'm sure many of the readers here could appreciate the significance and relevance of this event. From the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN):
What is the purpose of the LHC?
The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres [17 miles] of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at 10h28 this morning. This historic event marks a key moment in the transition from over two decades of preparation to a new era of scientific discovery.
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Starting up a major new particle accelerator takes much more than flipping a switch. Thousands of individual elements have to work in harmony, timings have to be synchronized to under a billionth of a second, and beams finer than a human hair have to be brought into head-on collision. Today’s success puts a tick next to the first of those steps, and over the next few weeks, as the LHC’s operators gain experience and confidence with the new machine, the machine’s acceleration systems will be brought into play, and the beams will be brought into collision to allow the research programme to begin.
What is the purpose of the LHC?The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.Pretty sweet stuff! For more information, check out the page on Wikipedia.
Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.
There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe.
Update:
Comments
"Oh, the chance of a resonance cascade is exceedingly small" - Half Life Scientist
"We really don't think there is much danger presented by the teleporter" - Doom Scientist
These bad scientists and fictional scientists are always going around saying something isn't actually dangerous. But games like the one I mentioned as well as Chernobyl have made some people think that scientists are a bunch of cow-boys who are willing to bet everything on what they think is a small risk. That scientists are stuck in an out of touch world of odds, not understanding the real consequences of what they're doing.
Now, I don't think this. But I understand how this popular perception came about.
http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/
It simply baffles me that so much time, money and human ingenuity has been expended for so little gain!
With all of the very real problems in the world needing the efforts of the best solvers we can find, why do physicists think that the equivalent of accurately counting the angels on the head of a pin is worth $10 billion?
Though I work in a field where the word "billion" rolls easily off of the tongue, it is always worth remembering just how big $10 billion is.
Fill the Rose Bowl (100,000) people. Write each of them a check for $100,000. That is $10 billion.
I'm of the complete opposite opinion on this. $10B invested by 20 countries is nothing. We should always be exploring and inventing and progressing. That's how we've gotten to be where we're at today.
We don't know what we don't know and it will take more and more money to achieve new things.
I found some Einstein quotes that seem to fit this situation::
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
"Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Not to forget, the sheer joy of understanding how the universe works is priceless in itself even if it has no application.
Love Hasersys