Particle accelerator

[Aki]

I know that a particle accelerator is different from a particle collider. Particle collider smash particles together, and particle accelerator accelerate particles. But what's the purpose of accelerating particles?

[TINNY]

i think a particle collider is a subset of a particle accelerator.

Purpose is to increase its energy level so that it is interactive with matter.

Also, they behave very differently at different energy levels.... i think. Just conjecturing.

Think about the Special Theory - length contraction, time dialation, mass increase... that's what it is for. Mainly to increase mass.

errgh. i'm hopeless in physics. even more so in particle physics...

[Tormod]

Your explanation is fine, Tinny.

[TINNY]

thanks. i hope it's nothing sarcastic.

[sanctus]

An accelerator is for example the only way to study some particles with a very short life-span (e.g. muon), as thanks to special relativity time dilates (as Tinny said).
And as Tinny said as well, the collider often is where acelerated particles (accelerated by the accelerator) collide. The purpose is to get to very high energy collisions, because then one gets close to the conditions of the universe soon after the big bang.

[TINNY]

so how expensive are these particle accelerators? how about the 4km(not sure) one in Stanford, California. All in the name of science huh? getting to understand the big bang. would CRT monitors be counted as particle accelerators?

[sanctus]

expensive enough that in the LHC (large hadron collider) they are building in geneva it is and will always be the only one in the world!!!

[TINNY]

so every scientist who wants to research on some particles that need the LHC would have to pay (to CERN is it?). that's good business. do you go there everyday? right beside your house huh?
why is it so important as to warrant such high expenditure?

[Freethinker]

Yes, unfortunately the Regan Admin squashed the Superconducting Super Collider which was actually under construction in Texas. Prefering in stead to give the money to their Corp buddies to develop the dead ended Star Wars program. The one that Dubya resurrected at the start of his admin instead of continuing to fund Clinton's anti-terrorist programs, thus allowing 9/11. The one that just failed completely at the cost of $100,000,000.00 so far.

It was to be almost 3 times larger than the CERN LHC, Producing 20 TeV instead of the 7TeV of the LHC. It was expected to actually allow us to explore the Higgs Boson.

One of the reasons it was squashed was the Religious Right's anti-science efforts. It was claimed that it could literally shatter the stablity of the universe and cause a timespace rip. While perhaps what most scared them was it's projected ability to give us serious answers to the universe which would once and for all destroy religious superstions. So instead of investing $20B into something that we know actually works (just a larger version of existing technologies) we spend $100B on something that has failed every test ever given it.

[Freethinker]

And Tinny, it would seem you deserve special recognition. Excellent answers. Hypog should give you an award for "Most progressed" or such.