In Thrilling Smashup, LHC Breaks Beam Luminosity World Record
Particles Collide Like Fireworks Lucas Taylor via WikimediaThe Large Hadron Collider is now officially the world's most powerful particle accelerator The LHC smashed a record-breaking number of particles at midnight Geneva time last night, setting a new standard for beam intensity. CERN replaced Fermilab's former record of 4.024 × 1032cm-2s-1 with a smug 4.67 × 1032cm-2s-1. That's a lot of zeros, ranging somewhere in the billions of billions. Of billions. What do all those zeros really mean? Like in a game of molecular bowling, the LHC's hunt for the Higgs boson depends on a high number of collisions. But in this game, when the ball hits the pins, it creates bright lights--the brighter the lights, the more potential collisions. A strike would look like a blazing solar explosion, while a gutter ball would look depressingly dark. This beam intensity record is a strike, but the game isn't over. CERN scientists...