LHC: THE REAL FAQs
by Alan Lenton
[Editrix's note: there's no Winding Down this week because Alan has gone away, but one of the cleaning droids that was tidying up after him found a series of beermats upon which he had scribbled in his customary green crayon the following notes. We thought you'd be interested to read them.]
As my regular readers will know, one of the purposes of my Winding Down column is to explain technical issues in non-technical language . One of the biggest technical issues of the moment is the start up of the LHC in Switzerland.
In order to help you, dear readers, understand what it is and how it works I have been scouring the tabloid press here in the UK (and of course, the Wikipedia), and I can now explain just what is going on at the LHC.
Q. What does LHC stand for?
A. It stands for 'Large Hobbit Collider'. Note that it is the collider that is large, not the hobbits.
Q. Hobbits???
A. Yes. Well, strictly speaking, it's virtual hobbits, since it's using beams of proteins. However, since hobbits live in tunnels, and the collider is in a 17 mile* long disused hobbit hole, the name seemed appropriate. The tunnel originally belonged to a machine called the LEP, which was the Leprechaun Collider, but when the leprechauns ran out (no pots of gold in a recession, and no rainbows due to global warming) it was given to the LHC.
Q. How does it work?
A. It's a bit complicated, but basically the beams of hobbits are fed into the machine at high speed and they go past a spaced out series of fridge magnets which speed them up until they are travelling at nearly the speed of light (this is a scientific way of saying 'very fast'). There are two beams of hobbits, travelling in opposite directions, and when they meet - POOF! - they turn into something else. No one is sure, yet, exactly what they will turn into.
Q. How do you speed up a hobbit up with a fridge magnet?
A. It's very clever, the way they do this. The hobbits are covered with magnetic baby oil. Each time the hobbit passes a magnet the magnet gives them a quick squeeze, and being slippery, because of the baby oil, they slide out of the magnets' embrace faster than they went into it!
Q. Umm - what's the point?
A. There is no point, the LHC is a circle, and circles are smooth.
Q. I mean what is the purpose of the LHC - What is it for?
A. Oh - I see what you mean. One of the main reasons for the existence of the LHC is to look for Higgs bozos. Professor Higgs was the guy in the movie My Fair Lady who invented the phrase 'The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain'. Unfortunately, the resulting deluge washed all his bozos down the drain and they've been trying to find a way of recovering them ever since. Bozos come in different types, typically W or Z bozos, but perhaps the best known are C bozos, who are usually known by their common name - 'C List Celebrities'.
Q. So how do you make Higgs bozos?
A. In order to get a Higgs bozo you need to bang together two strangely charming quarks in a special wonderland discovered by Alice. I've no idea what Alice's second name is, but her boyfriend is called Bob and she talks to him over a quantum encrypted chat line.
Q. What's so special about Higgs bozos?
A. Well, it seems that they have a special field. Opinion differs on whether the field contains cows or wheat - this is what is known as a 'scientific controversy' and provides a subject for scientists to write very abstruse papers about the problem.
Q. So what's special about the field - apart from the cows?
A. I'm glad you asked that. The field provides the universe with masts. As you're probably aware, since steamships replaced sailing ships, there has been a shortage of masts. The latest energy crisis means that we need masts to put sails on the steam ships, which have no oil to fuel them.
Q. So, in fact, the main purpose of the LHC is to help solve the world energy crisis?
A. Exactly!
Alan Lenton
27 September 2008
*That's 1,466 London Transport bendy buses long, assuming they are nose to tail because of a traffic jam.
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