TimeOut - Very interesting!

Very interesting!

The Behavior of particle physics is certainly a very interesting topic that can answer many questions; the birth of the universe, the equation of time, special atomic properties, etc.

In Northern California, Stanford University runs SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The SLAC is very famous for its research and discovery of the behaviors of quarks (quarks are inside of the protons and neutrons of an atom).

Ironically, many of the atoms "fired down the accelerator tube" for atom smashing are gold atoms. Despite this, the SLAC uses only a tiny amount of gold every year because they're smashing them literally one atom at a time.

Perhaps something that is equally amazing is the logistics that are required to launch the atom smasher. Since the particle travels at the speed of light, it travels the entire length of the 3 km long linear accelerator in the matter of nanoseconds, thus, the timing of the firing sequence needs to be accurate down to the nanosecond. Horology at its finest hour.

Thank you for the post Andrew! Are you a scientist?

Synchrotron (TO warning: horological content, sort of) …

By: AndrewD : November 2nd, 2009-20:09

The Australian Synchrotron held an open day recently and I went along to have a look. The Synchrotron uses electromagnets to accelerate electrons up to near the speed of light and uses the released ‘light’ for various medical, scientific and industrial ap...

re: Synchrotron....

By: DRMW : November 2nd, 2009-23:01

Hello Andrew, Thanks for sharing the pics. What kind of experiments are they running with the synchrotron? -MW

Experiments ...

By: AndrewD : November 3rd, 2009-00:11

The Synchrotron uses an electron gun to generate electrons that are passed through a linear accelerator and a booster ring to achieve 99.98% of the speed of light (first picture). These electrons release an intense radiation called ‘synchrotron light’ tha...

It looks a lot like . . .

By: Dr No : November 3rd, 2009-08:37

. . . Dr No's laboratory. Then again, all laboratories do ;-) . . . cordially, Art

Very interesting!

By: patrick_y : November 4th, 2009-12:51

The ultimate chronograph?

By: AndrewD : November 4th, 2009-13:54

Hi Patrick, Thanks for the interesting information about the SLAC and its role in particle physics. The Synchrotron was set up primarily for industrial and medical research applications. There is a lot of materials research that goes on and various groups...

The ultimate indeed...

By: patrick_y : November 4th, 2009-15:05

I am consistently amazed with the progress of technology that is achieved and I am consistently amazed that many of our PuristS members are from such interesting backgrounds. I'm not going to pretend I know any more about accelerators than I do, but I tha...