Weird Facts About the Hadron Collider

It's both unimaginably hot and unimaginably cold
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 3, 2010 5:07 AM CDT
Weird Facts About the Hadron Collider
A file photo of the Large Hadron Collider.   (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini, File)

Now that the Large Hadron Collider is up and running again, Ross Bonander of AskMen unearths 5 scientific tidbits:

  • It's really, really cold: The system's magnets are cooled to -456°F, a bit chillier than deep outer space.
  • It's really, really hot: After those magnets do their stuff, the resulting collisions of proton beams create temperatures about 100,000 times hotter than the core of the sun. For all of a trillionth of a second.

  • Stephen Hawking theory: If the collider were to produce a mini black hole (it's unlikely) and die as a result, it would confirm a 1974 theory put forth by Hawking and almost certainly earn him a Nobel Prize.
  • Einstein rules: The collider relies on the E=mc2 equation, though it's inverted here to m=E/c2, which you probably already knew.
For more, click here. (More Large Hadron Collider stories.)

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