infatuated with CERN's LHC

i can't stop thinking about the LHC in europe. this project is absolutely amazing to look at. the experiments are absolutely fascinating. to think that we as humans can build something so massively complex to look for a particle so infinitely small is really incredible to me. the first official experiment will fire off on sept. 10, 2008. if you haven't heard of this awesome achievement, you soon will. here is a link to a great BBC report on all of the experiments going on at the LHC. it's a really great read if you have time to check out all of the info they have posted. It will truly be one of the greatest experiments of our lifetimes. Here's a few stats for the geek squad out there.
- the main tunnel is 27km in diameter. for us that's 17 miles.
- the main tunnel is cooled using liquid heilum for a temp of -459ºF
- the main tunnel houses super conducting magnets used to steer the particles around the ring.
- the amount of data expected to be generated is 15 petabytes a year. that's 15 million gigabytes. and that is only 1 perecnt of the total data generated. they computers will automatically toss out 99 percent of the data after an initial cursory examination.
- the CMS is made up of magnets expected to generate a magnetic field 100,000 times the magnetic field of the earth.
- the CMS weighs 12,500 tons and is 69ft long, 49ft high, and 49ft wide. It was built on the surface and then lowered into the cavern in fourteen pieces.
- Alice is looking for quark-gluon plasma. sounds like star wars stuff.
- Alice will be colliding lead atoms together and will generate temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the core of the sun. this will cause the protons and neutrons in the lead atoms to "melt" and the scientists will hopefully be able to see the quark-gluon plasma.

seriously, this thing is amazing. i wonder if i can convince my family to take a little vacation to the swiss/french border next year.