These four fixes will double the power of the world’s greatest physics machine

Later this spring, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, will restart the world’s biggest particle physics experiment, after a hiatus of two years. Beams of protons are scheduled to start circulating through the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in mid-March. Physicists hope to start smashing the protons together and recording data before midyear.

When it restarts, the LHC will be able to smash protons with nearly twice the energy it had before. Even at its previous power level researchers were able to use the LHC to find the Higgs boson. This particle—whose existence was predicted decades ago—explains why some particles have mass. But scientists hope that the higher-energy collisions will reveal some new (if more difficult to explain) discoveries, such as the elusive supersymmetric particles or even possible candidates for dark matter, the mysterious material that binds the universe together.

The LHC got off to an inauspicious start, and that bad beginning explains some upgrades. In September 2008 during a final commissioning phase—and before the accelerator reached its planned maximum energy of 14 teraelectron volts—one of the more than 10,000 interconnections for wires supplying power to the superconducting magnets of the LHC failed, causing an arc that melted through a helium line and damaged a several-hundred-meter stretch of the system. After a year of repairs, the LHC started up and eventually reached a reduced collision energy of 7 TeV.

The upgrade being finished now is to reach 13 TeV. And it was clear from the beginning that it would require a complete overhaul of the interconnections. So CERN management decided to shut down the accelerator for a two-year period, starting in early 2013. This allowed the LHC engineering teams to update and upgrade several other systems, including the data gathering and storage technology and thecryogenics, which keep the system’s superconducting magnets at a crisp 1.9 kelvins. Also, the Atlas detector—one of four enormous machines in which the actual particle collisions take place—was equipped with an extra layer of particle detectors, increasing its precision substantially.

• Tougher Interconnections

  A team of about 280 technicians undertook the checking and reinforcing of more than 10,000 interconnections that connect the Large Hadron Collider’s superconducting wires. These cables, which have a trapezoidal cross section, are overlapped for several centimeters, pressed tightly together, and held in place with a silver-based solder. At full operation, the splices can carry a current of 13 kiloamperes, and the slightest fault would cause the junction to heat and fail.

  The revision of the connections has now been completed, reports Jean-Philippe Tock, who leads the project. All junctions have been tested at room temperature. Those displaying anomalies were resoldered. All junctions have also been equipped with copper shunts, which can take over in case of failure, he says. The system that keeps watch on the new junctions has also been upgraded to provide better accuracy and resolution. “We have many more measuring points,” says Tock. For example, voltage surges that occur over groups of connections, which normally have a resistance of less than 3 nano-ohms, will automatically shut down the accelerator. “We have not invented new technology; we have applied existing technology to a very high level of quality and quality assurance to an unprecedented level,” he says.

• Safer Cooling

  When an electrical interconnection between two helium-cooled magnets failed in 2008—knocking askew accelerator magnets and damaging about half a kilometer of the 27-kilometer machine in a flood of coolant—the system lost a much larger quantity of helium than was expected.

  “In response to this incident, we increased the number of safety valves on our vacuum systems, so that we do not get this avalanche of helium pressure that caused the displacement of magnets,” says Laurent Jean Tavian, leader of the cryogenic group at CERN’s technology department.

• Bigger Data

  “The data acquisition and storage system has been overdesigned from the beginning. We would have needed much more data than anticipated to run into problems,” says Niko Neufeld, who is responsible for the upgrade of high-speed data acquisition for LHCb. (LHCb is short for the LHC Beauty Experiment, which seeks to detect b [beauty] quarks and anti-b quarks; a difference in their decay rates would explain the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe.) Nevertheless, he and his colleagues have been upgrading data systems by replacing obsolete hardware with more efficient and compact modern systems. In the past CERN has developed and pioneered new hardware itself—the CAMAC (computer automated measurement and control) industrial data-acquisition standard and capacitive touch screens are examples. Although CERN now makes fewer custom systems, Neufeld says there is a need for specialized high-speed, radiation-hardened electronics that can operate in strong magnetic fields. And a bigger upgrade is in the works. For experiments scheduled to start in 2019, the data flow is expected to increase by two orders of magnitude. “This will require a significant change, and new technologies will have to be put in,” says Neufeld.

• Superior Sensors

  The Atlas detector is one of four placed around the few points where the counter rotating protons collide head-on. Beniamino Di Girolamo, the technical coordinator of the Atlas experiment, says that workers had to replace a layer of detectors, or “pixels,” that were close to the beam pipe because of radiation damage. However, such a replacement proved impossible because of structural constraints in the detector, so they decided to build an insert, called the IBL (insertable B layer) that would fit between the beam pipe and the innermost layer of the detector assembly. The IBL was then able to take advantage of better radiation- hard detector pixels, which were developed by a research program at CERN. But the most important aspect of the IBL is that it improves the precision of Atlas. “Having a layer at the beginning of a [particle] track is very important to us. If you have high precision very near the start of the track, then you can even relax the precision you need in the outer layers [of the detector assembly],” says Di Girolamo.

  He reports that the insertion of the IBL, which was a very delicate operation, was successful. “The IBL, for its operation, has been cooled down and is now fully working,” he says.

Yep, you’ve got that right.

I hope Putin is not sick, because surely the US will be blamed. As Ipso said, Putin has been restrained, a replacement might not be that way.

We are so screwed.

Already started. Back when Bernie Madoff got caught. I see many trends of reversal of the “screw the American” agenda. The most recent “Madoff” are the vitamin pill and supplements. Most of them filled with stuff not related to the label.

Evidently, the public has been fair game, getting financially screwed in so many ways, for decades, that there is money less left for the Gov’t to get. So the Gov’t has started exposing and reversing many “screw the public” scams from various businesses.

I even made a new motto….Or warning…”What ever you were getting away with, you better stop”. If you think about it you might remember or think of some samples in your own town.

All this time we were told it was about religion and making sure a little boy looked like his Dad so he wouldn’t feel like a freak… oh, the lies they have spewed over the centuries. And now they’re trying to make this mandatory too? I think not! We are not cattle to be branded and altered at gunpoint.

And now I feel even worse that I had our dogs neutered. “They” say it helps prevent cancer, but we’ve already lost two Golden Retrievers to cancer. I think it’s time to castrate the psychopaths running this planet—without anaesthesia.

Kingston General Hospital in Canada has an excellent reputation, and it sickens me to think they, too, have been infiltrated by the greedy butchers.  ~ BP

After discovering that the trauma from circumcision permanently altered the baby’s brain in regions associated with reasoning, perception and emotions, the researchers were threatened to destroy their results or face legal action and immediate dismissal.

As a graduate student working in the Department of Epidemiology at Kingston General Hospital, Paul D. Tinari, Ph.D. was approached by a group of nurses who had noticed that babies that underwent circumcision were experiencing excruciating levels of pain that negatively affected their behavior.   In an attempt to gather some scientific evidence that would support their positions,  Tinari suggested functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and/or Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning to observe the effects of circumcision on the infant brain.

Tinari and the nurses used the MRI machine for their study after the MRI machine operator granted them permission.  Next they needed a test subject whose brain they could scan for changes pre and post circumcision.  A pregnant nurse volunteered her son to be the subject of the study.  Her husband had been putting intense pressure on her to have the procedure done, and it was her hope that the information gathered from the study would lead to the complete eradication of male infant circumcision.

What did the MRI Brain Scans Reveal?

The researchers tightly strapped the infant to the traditional plastic “circumstraint”, and immobilized the infants head using the standard surgical tape.  With no anesthetic used, the entire contraption was put into the MRI chamber, and the doctor performed the surgery using a sterilized plastic blade (since no metal objects can be used in an MRI due to large magnetic fields).

Paul D. Tinari, Ph.D. explains the results of his study:

The baby was kept in the machine for several minutes to generate baseline data of the normal metabolic activity in the brain. This was used to compare to the data gathered during and after the surgery. Analysis of the MRI data indicated that the surgery subjected the infant to significant trauma. The greatest changes occurred in the limbic system concentrating in the amygdala and in the frontal and temporal lobes.

A neurologist who saw the results postulated that the data indicated that circumcision affected most intensely the portions of the victim’s brain associated with reasoning, perception and emotions. Follow up tests on the infant one day, one week and one month after the surgery indicated that the child’s brain never returned to its baseline configuration. In other words, the evidence generated by this research indicated that the brain of the circumcised infant was permanently changed by the surgery.

Researchers Threatened and Forced to Destroy Study Results

“Our problems began when we attempted to publish our findings in the open medical literature,” explained Paul Tinari.  All of the researchers who participated in the study were called before the discipline committee at Kingston General Hospital who severely reprimanded them, stating that male circumcision was legal under all circumstances in Canada, and that studying the adverse effects of circumcision was strictly prohibited.  The research team wasn’t allowed to publish the results of their study, and what’s more, they were forced to destroy all of their results.  The penalty that would be imposed upon them if they failed to comply was immediate dismissal and legal action.

As Paul D. Tinari, current director of the Pacific Institute for Advanced Study has written,

I would encourage anyone with access to fMRI and /or PET scanning machines to repeat our research as described above, confirm our results, and then publish the results in the open literature.

Add me to that list…however, April will be especially dangerous to Putin’s health and it doesn’t look good.  It appears he is suffering some kind of cancer…it may be pancreatic or spinal…or both.

Yep and if you think about it there’s not much left to transfer over seas no now what? Our land? .. and when do the dethronings start. Same issue we have opportunists moving in office not representatives to the country be this one or Europe with their own financial motives at hand over the health of the economy.

The people are in general brainwashed by the PTB media. They have no power. The Congress is polluted by foreign and other special interests. Often the entire Congress can’t get its way with a dominant Whitehouse. Lately the Congress is going against the Whitehouse.

I suspect the Whitehouse is answering to, speaking for, and representing, global governmental organizations. Think about it. Same ole same ole for decades. No matter who wins presidential elections, the once massive middle class citizens are HISTORY.

Even during Ronald Reagan the shadow world gov’t was giving Americans tax breaks to buy foreign made machinery. Remember cash for clunkers? The taxpayers paid other taxpayers up to $4000 for an $800 junk boxer to buy a new imported car.

Yep any maybe the people better start demanding better than a spokesperson and start demanding due process over brain dead executive orders as well.

In my view, his only job or purpose, is running for office, campaigning. He has to practice, and remember all his canned speeches, or script, and is a well groomed spokesperson or representative of the foreign special interests that contribute money to get elected.

Same as a wealthy race car owner that hires a professional driver to win the race. The “owner” is not qualified or capable of winning an election.

He wouldn’t be controlled by so many inputs  if he had a better sense of responsibility to his position. Yes we have too many freeloaders ” in office” getting ” sweet jobs” for their family as Hilary mentioned in email hack as well as themselves. How do you expect them to react to other freeloaders. Their May be nothing in it but detrament to us but most likely SONETHING in it for them. Their will  always be freeloaders because they choose not to solve problems but use them for their own motives. Until we effectively weed out the bad we will continue to have these problems.

That’s very interesting. I know that at least Ororeef and myself would regret Putin’s passing. Let’s hope he recovers!

Sure looks like our influence in the world is shrinking. E tu Great Britain. We have been high handed and bullied other countries including our friends for a long time. It’s not surprising that there is pushback developing. I imagine the same sort of things happened when the British pound lost it’s #1 spot in the world.

Would be better without the scary headlines!

to equalize poor countrys with the US various capacity s they can send our jobs there,they can favor them with unfair trade agreements,they can sky rocket the Dollar they can offer to trade low wage jobs that employ lots of people ….They can take kick backs in foreign bank accounts for exchanging jobs that employ many with allowing the US into their banking system ..thats the “trade off”..We get to keep the Bankers happy ,they get jobs for the many..Our politicians sell us out and the Banksters are greasing the machinery with corrupt printed money given to Politicians for re election money .

In the end they will still be communist country s and will fail UNLESS the Communist give up POLITICAL POWER …it always ends that way !.It just takes a lot of time .even in countrys with assets to sell like oil & gas ….mostly they produce NO  consumer goods and the corrupt communists steal the money.Cuba does it by confiscating the tourist dollars then issue PESOS printed at almost no coast for domestic use !  Castro is reputed to have 5-10 billion in Spanish Banks….Communist always fails ,it takes time because you need to take them out of POWER FEET FIRST …History has shown that ..they get elected by making promises and lies  to the poor where the votes are …..When they get in the only remedy is “feet first”…Our remedy to keep communists out is to expose them making it clear to the poor they will end up selling their freedom for lies and promises just like CUBA and Venezuela.Putin is reputed to be worth about 35 billion…China Communists ?

I suspect China being a very pragmatic people see the light ,but give up political Power ? I doubt it witness Hong Kong ..they want to “approve” the candidates that run for election !

The Camel has his nose under the tent in China and all it takes is a famine ,drought or some such unforeseen event to oust them .The internet will destroy their political Power.

Yeah I hope he’s not going down the polonium trail as well. I don’t think he’s been reckless at all. If we stopped threatening Russia and dealt with them reasonably then I think things would calm down quickly. The world isn’t an elementary school playground … but I think sometimes that’s about the level of our foreign policy.

PS Glad to hear your surgery went well!

I think JPM knows that crimex is going to blow up at some point … so their stash of real silver should pay off handsomely. That’s my guess.

“IF we had real money. you should pay to have it safeguarded.”

But in this case the “money” being safeguarded isn’t gold, instead it’s depreciating fiat paper? To pay someone to hold your fiat and then they lend it out to others seems pretty crazy to me when you can buy gold and stash it in the ground and only pay once (the dealer’s percent) to do it, and have more safety as well. I just woke up so maybe I’m missing something.

LOL but do we need SO MANY poor people? Wouldn’t just a few work just as well? 🙂

The CIA won’t need to trouble themselves.  If I am reading his horoscope correctly, Putin is a very, very sick man.

re your……
“When we have a pres who has no sense of responsibility doing what he wants when he wants can’t say at present time we are being a very effective ourselves as allies because of it.”

Comment:
My view pres in not in proactive control. Only in reactive control. He is “controlled” by many various domestic and global forces or “inputs”.

The MAIN one is the US taxpayer is broke, making the US gov’t broke, note budget deficits and $17 trillion in debt (helping foreign nations) and there are now budget restraints.

The so called allies have absorbed way too much of Americana’s lives, consumer dollars and industrial wealth. They (freeloaders) are gradually just getting cut off mechanically.

When we have a pres who has no sense of responsibility doing what he wants when he wants can’t say at present time we are being a very effective ourselves as allys because of it. Even military concerned.

The USA has no allies. THEY all have allies, but we don’t. And I’m getting real tired of hearing from media …”Our Staunchest Ally” And what is STAUNCHEST mean anyway. The most dependent, with the most baggage??