Man, That hard-on collider is beautiful.

sorry liebchen, i didn't see your thread. My bad. The images are still really amazing to see though, aren't they?

God forbid we should do something like this in the US..oh wait how will we finance our wars then?

All the CERN you'll ever need:

http://www.vimeo.com/1431471

While this is the new gold standard in mad scientist labs, the US has Fermilab, which until this new development, was the highest energy collider in the world, so I don't think it is really fair to take a jab at the US like that.

I think it's not too bad a criticism given what happened with the SSC:

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=502

except the SSC was canceled under Bill Clinton's administration and the jab was about funding wars. I don't want to, and am not going to, get into it further, I just don't appreciate the back handed passive aggressive jabs at the US.

Synergy, no need to apologize. Those pictures are bad ass.

Fermilab and its sister Argone Labs of the University of Chicago have contributed more to science so far the the LHC. I hope the LHC does a lot of good. Its an amazing concentration of capital and brains. But to shit on the US - thats just bullshit.

Everyone shits on the US. Get used to it.

poop

it's only cos the u.s. likes it (yay coprophilia!) otherwise they'd change their behaviour (bad dog! bad dog!)

elivplatypus: considering the LHC won't been turned on for another 4 days, it's not much of a claim you make there.

Some of the most awesome images ever synergy.

Even if it can't find the Higgs-Boson or anything else they're looking for, its still amazing to me we can build such things. A proton collider 54 miles in diameter thats engineered for tolerances to the nth microscale.

yeah, plus it is just flat out beautiful. Makes you really think of Particle Physicists in a different way, doesn't it?

that whole system is really amazing... i cant even comprehend the level of complexity involved in the operation of that system...

one thing is for sure... this is a very impressive feat from an increasingly powerful EU... i personally am pleased to see them set such an important and noble example. seems like its been a long time since any country has attempted something this ambitious...

Im just stating Fermi Lab has identified over 20 sub atomic particles and proved the existence of quarks - thats some big shoes to fill

When all is said and done, both facilities will have made important contributions to physics. It is the nature of research facilities to be replaced with more powerful counterparts over time.

also folks this isn't exactly the space race of the 60's we are talking about here... these types of projects are truly international in scope and use...

^evilp has a serious point.

I think when it comes to science we should increasingly shy away from nationalistic feelings towards it. Developed nations have and are pursing many scientific endeavors in a unilateral fashion. The U.S. donated over $500 million clams to Cern, and even though its a $8 billion project, i think thats still a nice contribution seeing how we spent $2 billion trying to build our own. I think we're approaching arenas of science (especially physics) where all the easy answers that could be solved with a guy in a lab with a bit of scientific equipment are long gone. International collaboration and the pooling of resources are going to be the only way we can answer the hardest questions.

Fermilab is run by a joint group including UofC, Japan, Canada and many others - its "owned" internationaly

i'd love to see just one of those pics where the workers were using a cum-along and a couple of 16lb sledge-hammers to 'guide' a piece of equipment into position....

did i just spell it that way????

yeah, you did

Don't feel bad, jeffe. I misread "Hadron" and thought we had a new euphemism for adult activities: "hadron colliding."

Nostradamus foretold:

Nostradamus quatrain 9 44:

Leave, leave Geneva every last one of you,
Saturn will be converted from gold to iron,
"Raypoz" will exterminate all who oppose him,
Before the coming the sky will show signs.