LHC start-up
I've been following the start-up of the LHC on Twitter (@LHC, @CERN). It's all very exciting, but I will admit to having little idea what they are talking about.
It started with beam 1 moving between 8 different points around the ring. I found this a bit puzzling as I thought the beam was supposed to be travelling at the speed of light, and so rather too fast to follow on Twitter. Then they "captured" the beam. That sounds good too! Some quality improvement followed. Always good to improve quality. Then, they did the same thing with the beam in the other direction, so it was a backwards countdown. And now they are reporting "splashes" from the beam.
I am actually pretty excited about this. Whatever the results, the LHC is going to produce important data. However, I'm going to have to get clued up about how the equipment works if I am going to follow their reports.
It started with beam 1 moving between 8 different points around the ring. I found this a bit puzzling as I thought the beam was supposed to be travelling at the speed of light, and so rather too fast to follow on Twitter. Then they "captured" the beam. That sounds good too! Some quality improvement followed. Always good to improve quality. Then, they did the same thing with the beam in the other direction, so it was a backwards countdown. And now they are reporting "splashes" from the beam.
I am actually pretty excited about this. Whatever the results, the LHC is going to produce important data. However, I'm going to have to get clued up about how the equipment works if I am going to follow their reports.