LHC update…

I just wanted to update you on the progress of the Large Hadron Collider.  Apparently, thier website gives out bulletins keeping everyone up to speed.  Unfortunately, these updates make no sense at all and are only written in their super secret science language.  So, I’d like to take a stab at translating for everyone (i’m talking to you emily (and my mom) since you’re the only one reading this).  Here is their bulletin, and here is my translation:

“We have been shooting beams of energy into these pipes since last week and they have gotten about half way around this big ass circle we built.  We’re using some really expensive and sensitive equipment to track the particles moving around in there and so far, nothing has broken.  Pretty soon we’re going to start shooting particles into another tube going the opposite direction and in about a week we should be able to see these particles getting into some head-on collisions.”

So there is your update, not too exciting yet.  Even if I don’t understand the specifics of what they are talking about I love reading bulletins that talk about such things as: “beams dumped just upstream of  the experiment cavern.” and “particles produced by the impact of the protons on the tertiary collimators left their tracks in the calorimeters and the muon chambers of the experiment.”

And here’s a bonus if you are interested in learning the facts about a baguette being the guilty party in the LHC’s emergency shut down.