Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: thedoc on 19/01/2010 19:00:43
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Yeah, G’day. I'm Greg from Australia. I got a question about the Large Hadron Collider, I was hoping you could answer. I'm curious about the temperatures that they run the experiments at. Just wanted to know if you could explain why the temperatures are so low. I think it’s around minus 270 degrees and also, how they get the temperature that low, and how they maintain it?
Asked by Greg, Australia
Read the naked scientists answer here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/questions/question/2535/)
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The low temperatures are provided by liquid helium. The purpose of the low temperature is to induced superconductivity in the wires needed in the large electro magnets that accelerate atomic particles. Superconductivity simply means electrical resistance in the subject wiring is reduced to zero.
Without this reduction the electrical power required for the magnets would be impossible. Even if the necessary power were provided, the wires would melt from the resistance. Managing the liquid helium is a major problem. The LHC was set back many months by a failure in the system that led to large leaks of liquid helium, and the destruction of many of the super conducting segments.
I believe these segments have been replaced, but I do not know whether the LHC is yet fully operational.
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Listen to the answer to this question on our podcast. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/2010.01.17/)
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my question is that why is lhc so huge at circumference as in its 27 km? what's the role of the huge area? cant protons gain the necesary energy by moving in a smaller circle?