Comment on We need a larger one. Yes, for the last time. Pleeeeeeeeeease!
Dagamant@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I can probably look this up but how does size effect the result in these things?
Comment on We need a larger one. Yes, for the last time. Pleeeeeeeeeease!
Dagamant@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I can probably look this up but how does size effect the result in these things?
cynar@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The limiting factor is the bend. The subatomic particles want to go in a straight line. A magnetic field is used to bend the beam around into a circle. The faster the particles are moving however, the more energy is needed to bend them. A larger circle has less bend. This lets you get your particles faster.
Since E^2 = M^2 C^4 + P^2 C^2 (the full form is E=MC^2 ). If you can force the particle to stop rapidly, then you can force the energy from momentum into mass. This is done by hitting 2 beams into each other. The faster the beams, the more energy is available to convert to mass.
Most of the time, this creates a lot of mundane particles. However, ever so often it creates something interesting. They rapidly decay into mundane particles, but the shower they create tells us a lot about them. The catch is that all the energy needs to be present at once. You can’t use more particles, you need to make them move faster.
As for why. The more particles we have to study, the more we can figure out about the underlying rules. We have a number of theories. They all agree at lower energy levels, but disagree at higher energy levels. By knowing which is correct, we can pry deeper into the workings of reality.
Dagamant@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Thanks!
LesserAbe@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Thanks! I’m personally in favor of doing things for knowledge’s sake. That said, what is the stated practical benefit when some government body is writing a check?
cynar@lemmy.world 5 months ago
There’s a story, though I’m not 100% sure on how true it was. Queen victoria did a royal visit to the new lab overseen by Michael Faraday. She asked him what use this new “electricity” was? His response was along the lines of "mam, we’re not completely sure, that’s why we are researching it.
As for actual uses. It could give us the theoretical key to room temperature super conductors. It could give us a foundation for exotic space drives. It could help crack new forms of fusion reaction.
Ultimately, it’s a foundational block. What gets built on there is hard to predict. By comparison, GPS is not an obvious extension of relativity. However, without an understanding of relativity, GPS would basically be useless. It would drift km/day