![]() Without the economies of centralization, CERN`s new accelerator could never have been built, he said. ''I think we were really lucky they didn`t agree on another site,'' said Schopper. Most of Europe`s big physics machines are concentrated at the densely packed CERN campus, but the original plan to locate them in different countries was scrapped only by default when CERN`s governors couldn`t agree what country would get the next big accelerator. ![]() ![]() Eventually, Schopper said, the two machines may be combined in a unique configuration so as to collide electron beams with proton beams. The second machine, if built, would collide proton beams with each other. The machine under construction will make beams of electrons collide with beams of their antimatter counterparts, positrons. That is why Schopper had his center`s 13-mile tunnel made large enough so that a second collider can be placed on top of the one now being installed. EUROPEAN SUPERCOLLIDER SERIESWhen it comes on line next year, CERN`s new accelerator will be hooked to a series of older physics machines that prepare the beams it uses.ĬERN physicists already have two more giant physics machines in planning stages that may also be called into the search for the Higgs particle.Įuropean physicists have taken to planning their physics machines two or three generations ahead because they know whatever is being proposed at the moment will only raise more questions and create a need for new machinery to seek answers. Of course, once the supercollider is in operation, CERN will lose its preeminent place in the world of particle physics, which no doubt also figures in the European thinking.Īmong reasons to pick Fermilab are that it would save money upfront by using some existing equipment and that it would also give America a physics center comparable to what Europe has, said Herwig Schopper, CERN director general. Richard Wilson, a Harvard physicist who has worked at Fermilab, said that building the supercollider at a new site would assure that it will be operated by an enthusiastic young staff instead of the bureaucracy at an existing center.īut European scientists say Fermilab is the most logical site for the supercollider, although many of them argue that it should not be built for several years, until the technology to fully utilize its great power becomes available. scientists, such as Nobel laureate Hans Bethe of Cornell University, say they don`t think the supercollider should be built on the Fermilab site because other areas of the country, such as North Carolina or Tennessee, should reap the economic and cultural benefits of a major new physics machine. Hence one of the most important arguments for the superconducting supercollider, which would be 20 times more powerful than Tevatron.įermilab and six other sites across the country are in the running as locations for the supercollider, a project that Congress has put on hold until the next president takes office. And at Fermilab in Du Page County, the quest began when the Tevatron accelerator started working earlier this summer.ĭespite their fervor in pursuit of Higgs, however, these scientists aren`t assuming it can be found with any of these new machines. In California, particle physicists using a new giant linear collider operated by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center hope to begin their search for Higgs within a few months. At CERN, on the French-Swiss border, a new accelerator buried in a 13-mile circular tunnel will begin running next year, and discovery of the Higgs particle is a major goal. ![]() Although no one has ever seen a Higgs, it has to exist or the whole Standard Model explaining everything we know about physical forces and matter will come unraveled.Īlso, there is bound to be a Nobel Prize for someone once Higgs surfaces. ![]()
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