'Big bang machine' study halted for 2 months - LHC- msnbc.com

America's Discarded Superconducting Supercollider
Written by Anthony Kendall on April 18th, 2006 at 11:26 am
From DamnInteresting.com

The N15 shaft of the Superconducting Supercollider tunnelDeep beneath the plains of central Texas lies a catacomb of tunnels once meant to house the most expensive physics experiment ever devised. That experiment, the Superconducting Supercollider, would have revolutionized our understanding of the physical world by giving us our first glimpse of the "God Particle." And, proposed during the Cold War, it would have been a monument to the technological and scientific prowess of the Western world.

But in 1993 after investing over $2 billion dollars into the project, President Clinton and Congress cancelled it entirely. Highly sophisticated machinery and laboratories were simply sold to the highest bidder, and thousands of acres of empty land were parceled off and sold as well. All that now remains are 200,000 square feet of still-vacant factories and labs, and over 30 km of carved-rock tunnels slowly filling with water.

One of the most persistent mysteries of the Universe is why matter has mass at all. Physicists think they know the answer; a particle called the Higgs Boson, also called the "God Particle", is thought to exist that gives all other particles mass. Around this theoretical particle they constructed the glittering edifice of late-20th century physics known rather plainly as the Standard Model.

Despite its tremendous importance, the Higgs has never been observed in experiments. According to calculations, it exists in detectable form only at astoundingly high temperatures and pressures - similar to those of the first few seconds after the Big Bang. Particle accelerators smash sub-atomic scraps together to regularly recreate such conditions, but none exists powerful enough to actually see the Higgs.

Frustrated by this problem, physicists petitioned the Department of Energy in the early 1980s to create the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. As its name suggests, the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) was to be enormous in every single way. It would slam particles together with more than 20 times the energy of any other existing or planned device. The beam of protons and anti-protons it would produce would be 100 times 'brighter' than even today's most powerful accelerators. In order to control such tremendous energies, cutting-edge superconducting magnets would bend the beam around an oval-shaped beam tunnel more than 80 km in circumference.

Superconducting Supercollider workers and their tunnel borerChoosing the site for such an enormous facility was a country-wide effort involving geological and economic studies in 43 states. Though the process was a drawn-out political affair, the final choice seems a natural one; after all, everything's bigger in Texas! The main accelerator ring would be bored through the bedrock 200 feet beneath Waxahachie, Texas. Sleepy Waxahachie would have been completely transformed by the SSC. Labs and factories were to be built nearby to produce the superconducting magnets and provide the above-ground facilities for the SSC's considerable staff. Literally thousands of researchers, graduate students, and technicians would have been involved in running the machine and many would have been housed there.
http://current.com/items/89321794_big_bang_machine_study_halted_for_2_months_lhc...

I agree with ya, just though folks should know.

"...the collider — the world's largest — malfunctioned within hours of its launch to great fanfare, but its operator didn't report the problem for a week."

Ah! Somebody with nuclear regulatory experience!

Inspires confidence, doesn't it?

Same as the Hubble Space Telescope. It's gotta go through some bumps before it works. This the first one remember. We don't know what is going to happen yet. I don't believe we are going to learn all results anyway. We'll just hear some little good stuff to keep us happy. Any real extraordinary findings will be kept under wraps.