Experimental Blog #30

Comments on "The Edge of Physics" - A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Anil Anathaswamy

About a century ago the sciences of particle physics and cosmology could be studied and appreciated by millions of educated amateur scientists all over the world. In spite of the very commendable efforts of Anil Anathaswamy, and others, times have changed considerably. However, if anybody is tempted to think that contemporary theoretical and experimental physicists are talking nonsense simply because outsiders can rarely really understand their esoteric subjects, this book should persuade them to give up such opinions.
Among the 9 or more places of advanced study visited by the author, the LHC, or Large Hadron Collider, located in France and Switzerland, seems to be the most publicized, as well as controversial. Needles to say, the project is enormously impressive; even more so than expected.
This super collider contains the world's greatest vacuums. They cannot even be measured and are equivalent to 600 miles out in space. The collider's proton beams might get "lost", and are "dangerous", moving "at full throttle" with energy equivalent to "400 ton trains traveling 150 kilometers per hour", "liquefying anything directly" in their path.
Most amazing is that the 40,000 tons of special magnets are the coldest things, or places, in the entire universe; even colder than outer space. They require 5 weeks to cool down, and 5 weeks to warm back up to room temperature.