How to run the LHC

August 25, 2008 11:10 AM

CERN has published the full technical details of the design and construction of the LHC and it's six detectors (1589 pages, 115MB). [via]
posted by alby (41 comments total)

Large hadron collider I HARDLY LARGE HADRON COLL-KNOW HER

No but really as soon as this finishes downloading I'm going to geek out and spend all night reading it (or casually perusing it for intimidating data tables)
posted by Damn That Television at 11:12 AM on August 25, 2008 [3 favorites]

Oooh, data!
posted by cortex at 11:14 AM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

psh, neophytes. Any tyro could have seen the childish error on page 458; the sign should have been reversed. If they went into production with such a nuisance it could well destroy th
posted by felix at 11:15 AM on August 25, 2008 [9 favorites]

meh. Cover ups are getting more technical.

FEAR THE HADRONS! THEY FEAST ON BRAINS!
posted by blue_beetle at 11:16 AM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

this thing is gonna put the kingda ka to shame, dude!
posted by quonsar at 11:19 AM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Now, to make that higgs boson sandwich... numnumnum.

err, if it exists. alternatively, hummus will do. at least until physicists correct the standard model. or find a less complicated way to add mass to my sandwiches.
posted by zonem at 11:20 AM on August 25, 2008

Now all I need is the funding to build my own.
posted by oddman at 11:26 AM on August 25, 2008

tl;dr
posted by Mister_A at 11:27 AM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

oddman: wanna go halfsies?
posted by echo target at 11:28 AM on August 25, 2008

No more comments until you people have read the fine article.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 11:29 AM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Mister_A *just* beat me to teh snark. Damn.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:31 AM on August 25, 2008

Who could have predicted that the instructions for destroying the Earth would take up less room on my iPod than Sgt Pepper's?
posted by mark242 at 11:31 AM on August 25, 2008

I just read it. It's kind oof dry, but the ending is worth the read.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:32 AM on August 25, 2008

That one just kinda hung over the plate, Devils Rancher.
posted by Mister_A at 11:32 AM on August 25, 2008

I'm going to build two homebrew fusion reactors, load them in my homebrew LHC and smash them into each other. I'll make a stable black hole or die trying.
posted by Science! at 11:38 AM on August 25, 2008

The amount of data these detectors have to deal with is absolutely ridiculous.
posted by dsword at 11:42 AM on August 25, 2008

Science!:
The second thing.
posted by Mister_A at 11:43 AM on August 25, 2008

Oh great, now terrorists will be able to build these and discover the fundamental constants of the universe themselves.
posted by DU at 11:44 AM on August 25, 2008 [4 favorites]

"No more comments until you people have read the fine article."

Ok hold on a sec, I'm just going to print out the 6.4 MB pdf real quick.
posted by clearly at 11:46 AM on August 25, 2008

Message left on my whiteboard:

GONE TO SWITZERLAND.
                  _{POCKET UNIVERSES}
BBIAB, w/ BLACK HOLES

FOR ALL

          XOXO
            —N@

posted by Eideteker at 11:48 AM on August 25, 2008

I'll use these blueprints to make my own small hadron collider out of pallet crate lath and a couple motorcycle engines, and tow it around the usual circuit of county fairs.

It can show the yokels a thorough debunking of string theory and maybe a couple more subatomic particles than they might've learned in school. That outta be worth five bucks a head, and cost less than running a Fried Coke cart. I'll clean up as long as they don't put the wagon too close to the titty show. And if the damn thing turns out a black hole, well, nobody's gonna to miss Idaho.
posted by ardgedee at 11:53 AM on August 25, 2008 [3 favorites]

I just read it. It's kind oof dry, but the ending is worth the read.

Yeah, I was kind of amazed that the Higgs boson turned out to be the LHC's sled from when it was a little kid.
posted by Greg Nog at 11:57 AM on August 25, 2008 [8 favorites]

Finally I can have a pet strangelet!
posted by brain_drain at 11:58 AM on August 25, 2008

I find it quite clever how they wedged the flux capacitor in there.
posted by chillmost at 12:00 PM on August 25, 2008

I wanted to make the obligatory large hardon joke this time. Is it too late?
posted by yhbc at 12:05 PM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

It's hadron, yhbc. What is ya, dense?
posted by Mister_A at 12:07 PM on August 25, 2008

Excellent. Now I know the exact location of the two-meter exhaust port.

*bullseyes a wamp rat in his T-16*
posted by XMLicious at 12:07 PM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Well, XMLicious, you'll have to fly through a trench past a bunch of gun turrets and girders and stuff, unless you just decide to FLY A LITTLE HIGHER until you get to the exhaust port and then like get closer to it or something. Probably best to stay in the incredibly hazardous trench though.
posted by Mister_A at 12:10 PM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

It is kinda fun to look at the abstracts and scroll past the names of the hundreds of authors that contribute to these papers. It gives a sense of collaboration that seems a bit rare in other human endeavors.
posted by Catfry at 12:25 PM on August 25, 2008

Nobody tell boingboing or the world will drown in a sea of papercraft LHC parts.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:27 PM on August 25, 2008 [5 favorites]

Is it me or is that a typo on page 881?
posted by uosuaq at 12:34 PM on August 25, 2008

Well, XMLicious, you'll have to fly through a trench past a bunch of gun turrets and girders and stuff, unless you just decide to FLY A LITTLE HIGHER until you get to the exhaust port and then like get closer to it or something. Probably best to stay in the incredibly hazardous trench though.

They realized this when they were making the old X-Wing game. To fix it they had to put in this whole goofy thing where the trench accelerated you or you had a booster pack that would only turn on in the trench or something, so that in the trench you went maybe ten times normal max speed. If you tried to leave the girder-dodging in the trench, I don't think normal speed was fast enough to survive all the turrets and enemy fire, plus it would take you an age of god to get to the exhaust port.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 12:37 PM on August 25, 2008

The collider isn't needed. Open those things in Acrobat reader and the whole world will slow down to the point where Higgs Bosuns will just be sitting there for the picking.
posted by srboisvert at 1:29 PM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oooh! Open source high-energy physics. You know, I still have this boy scout badge I never completed ....
posted by dhartung at 1:46 PM on August 25, 2008

Enough with the spoilers, people....
posted by elwoodwiles at 1:48 PM on August 25, 2008

In b4 large hardon collider joGODDAMMIT YHBC.
posted by rusty at 2:30 PM on August 25, 2008

This should be on the front cover of Make magazine.
posted by stbalbach at 5:15 PM on August 25, 2008 [1 favorite]

stbalbach,
The real LHC has been designed with care, and probably won't destroy the universe, but I'm worried about the people who will build the kit in the next issue of Make.
posted by lukemeister at 7:56 PM on August 25, 2008

Yeeeah you guys are kidding yourselves, this thing makes no sense.
posted by saxamo at 8:24 AM on August 26, 2008

DU: "Oh great, now terrorists will be able to build these and discover the fundamental constants of the universe themselves."

DU, it's not the fundamental constants. It's the motherfucking black holes, man. Think about a bunch of suicidal religious nuts getting their hands on a black hole generator.

I think this calls for national security to hid this document behind a heavy wall of red tape and black ink (and maybe even some duct tape, just to be safe).

Will duct tape help save us from these mini black holes that Al-Qaeda will create with this readily available knowledge?
posted by symbioid at 1:33 PM on August 26, 2008

Europe Pulls Ahead of U.S. in Physics
posted by homunculus at 5:11 PM on September 7, 2008