Oct 20 1:41PM - Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: From our awesome Physics class! WSHS
19 Posts
Wow! You've been to a lot of places, that seems cool. But we were wondering what could you possibily do in those different places related to physics?
We were also wondering what TV shows you watched?
D likes Gossip Girl and Greek.
A watches How I Met Your Mother and Psych.
A2 enjoys 90210 and also Gossip Girl.
K also watches How I Met Your Mother and Big Bang Theory.
Do you watch any of these?
Your fellow phyicist.
Reply:
Hi all,
As you might imagine, every country has its series of universities and, often times, their own national laboratories. So, some of my travels are to visit those labs and schools. And then, when people want to get together for a conference or a meeting, it is often chosen to be in a big city near a university or a lab. So that's how I manage to travel to all these places.
As for the TV shows; I really feel old. I don't believe I've ever watched any of those programs. I guess I'm more into Fringe, PBS Mystery shows, Law and Order, and news shows and sports and occasionally the Simpsons...
-Mike
Oct 21 9:36AM - lots of flying junk
24 Posts
So you work with particle accelerators and i was wondering when the large hadron collider was going to be online again? and what does your company really do?
Reply:
Hi,
The LHC is scheduled to turn back on sometime the middle of next month, in about 3 weeks or so from now.
As for where I work, Fermilab is a U.S. National Laboratory run by the U.S. Department of Energy. We have almost a dozen particle accelerators here, the largest of which is the Tevatron which is the most powerful accelerator in the world. At least it will be until the LHC comes on and surpasses us. (We've held the record for over 25 years!) So, we use these accelerators to give particles -- mostly protons -- very high energies and then smash them into each other to try to unravel the building blocks of nature and reveal how everything in the physical world is composed and how they behave.
-Mike
Showing posts with label fermilab. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fermilab. Show all posts
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
Golden Accelerator
Oct 19 3:24PM - Particle Accelerator Letdown.
14 Posts
Oh darn...there go our plans to blow up the Vatican. Dr. Syphers, reading your profile, I was wondering...what exactly do you accomplish by accelerating gold nuclei and colliding them together? And what first attracted you to the field of physics? ~A
Reply:
Hi,
Gold atoms are made up of 79 electrons around a nucleus of 79 protons and neutrons. Actually, its only stable isotope is 197Au, which means there are 79 protons and 118 neutrons in the nucleus! Since each proton and neutron are composed of smaller particles -- called quarks -- then there's a good chance of making "quark soup" when we collide gold nuclei. So, we strip away all of the electrons and accelerate the positively charged nuclei alone to try to generate a "sea" of quarks and gluons, at densities that likely haven't happened in nature since the time of the Big Bang. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_gluon_plasma
As for my humble beginnings, it really started for me at a young age when I became interested in the stars and planets.
-Mike
Oct 19 3:27PM - Fermilab
14 Posts
Hey! In reading your profile I was wondering what exactly a fermilab is. Also, what are y'all planning on doing with the Tevatron in two years once you close it down? ~S
Reply:
Hi S,
The term "fermilab" is just short for the laboratory where I work: the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It's web site is: http://www.fnal.gov , in case you haven't seen it yet. Enrico Fermi was a famous physicist from the University of Chicago in the 1930-40's. He and his group were the first to generate sustainable nuclear energy from radioactive atomic nuclei and our lab is named after him.
We're still debating what to do once the Tevatron turns off. We might use it to do some different types of experiments. For instance, rather than collide beams together head on, we might use it to accelerate beams of particles and then direct them into stationary targets. We've done this before, and there are certain experiments that work well that way. Or, we might just shut it down and use the tunnel to build some different type of accelerator in the future, though we don't have a design for this use quite yet. Our budget will help determine if we can afford to keep it running, as will the various merits of the experiments that are dreamed up to use it.
-Mike
Oct 19 3:28PM - B's blog
14 Posts
How much do you get paid and what exactly does your job entail in a given day? (and by this, I mean, should I enter that field of study?) Thanks! ~B
Reply:
Hi B,
Personally, I think it's a great field of study. There are many uses of accelerators out there, not just for studying quarks and neutrinos, but also for medicine and industry and other uses.
Typically my day consists of many meetings, some work in our Control Room (where we run the accelerators) and sometimes I'm lucky and get to do some calculations and studies using the accelerators. But, I've been in the field for a while now; when I was younger it was less meetings and more "science." But that's OK; that's how it works. I get to travel a lot around the country and the world, have 5 weeks of vacation a year (plus holidays, etc.), and get to work with the coolest equipment, meet top scientists in all kinds of fields, have flexible work hours -- and it's just plain fun for me (most of the time). Oh, and a typical scientist at my level at Fermilab makes between 85K and 170K; I'm in the middle of that range somewhere.
-Mike
14 Posts
Oh darn...there go our plans to blow up the Vatican. Dr. Syphers, reading your profile, I was wondering...what exactly do you accomplish by accelerating gold nuclei and colliding them together? And what first attracted you to the field of physics? ~A
Reply:
Hi,
Gold atoms are made up of 79 electrons around a nucleus of 79 protons and neutrons. Actually, its only stable isotope is 197Au, which means there are 79 protons and 118 neutrons in the nucleus! Since each proton and neutron are composed of smaller particles -- called quarks -- then there's a good chance of making "quark soup" when we collide gold nuclei. So, we strip away all of the electrons and accelerate the positively charged nuclei alone to try to generate a "sea" of quarks and gluons, at densities that likely haven't happened in nature since the time of the Big Bang. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_gluon_plasma
As for my humble beginnings, it really started for me at a young age when I became interested in the stars and planets.
-Mike
Oct 19 3:27PM - Fermilab
14 Posts
Hey! In reading your profile I was wondering what exactly a fermilab is. Also, what are y'all planning on doing with the Tevatron in two years once you close it down? ~S
Reply:
Hi S,
The term "fermilab" is just short for the laboratory where I work: the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It's web site is: http://www.fnal.gov , in case you haven't seen it yet. Enrico Fermi was a famous physicist from the University of Chicago in the 1930-40's. He and his group were the first to generate sustainable nuclear energy from radioactive atomic nuclei and our lab is named after him.
We're still debating what to do once the Tevatron turns off. We might use it to do some different types of experiments. For instance, rather than collide beams together head on, we might use it to accelerate beams of particles and then direct them into stationary targets. We've done this before, and there are certain experiments that work well that way. Or, we might just shut it down and use the tunnel to build some different type of accelerator in the future, though we don't have a design for this use quite yet. Our budget will help determine if we can afford to keep it running, as will the various merits of the experiments that are dreamed up to use it.
-Mike
Oct 19 3:28PM - B's blog
14 Posts
How much do you get paid and what exactly does your job entail in a given day? (and by this, I mean, should I enter that field of study?) Thanks! ~B
Reply:
Hi B,
Personally, I think it's a great field of study. There are many uses of accelerators out there, not just for studying quarks and neutrinos, but also for medicine and industry and other uses.
Typically my day consists of many meetings, some work in our Control Room (where we run the accelerators) and sometimes I'm lucky and get to do some calculations and studies using the accelerators. But, I've been in the field for a while now; when I was younger it was less meetings and more "science." But that's OK; that's how it works. I get to travel a lot around the country and the world, have 5 weeks of vacation a year (plus holidays, etc.), and get to work with the coolest equipment, meet top scientists in all kinds of fields, have flexible work hours -- and it's just plain fun for me (most of the time). Oh, and a typical scientist at my level at Fermilab makes between 85K and 170K; I'm in the middle of that range somewhere.
-Mike
Thursday, February 4, 2010
From our awesome Physics class!
From our awesome Physics class! - Oct 13 1:13PM
5 Posts
Hello Dr. Syphers! Anyways we are interested in hearing more about your job and if you could please explain in more details what the accelarator is for. What is a typical day at the Fermilab? What other areas do you dabble in? p.s. any chance you can help us with a project we have?
Reply:
Hi WSHS!
Anyway, the accelerator at Fermilab is used to smash particles together to see what happens in an attempt to understand the most basic building blocks of matter and energy, and to learn more about how the universe works. You can see much more about it at: http://www.fnal.gov
Typically my day consists of many meetings, some work in our Control Room (where we run the accelerators) and sometimes I'm lucky and get to do some calculations and studies using the accelerators. Besides particle acceleration, I also like to study astrophysics; it was astronomy that really got me interested in science at at young age.
Cheers,
-Mike
p.s. -- when you say "help us with a project," exactly what did you have in mind?
Oct 14 2:26PM - Re: Re: Re: Introduction
5 Posts
Mike, Our High School is also very small and we're lucky their has not been a situation like that in our school. How is it like interacting with your students that choose to work at Fermilab with you? What are they able to do sense they have yet to graduate from collage? Is it like an internship for the students? Thank you for at the least, the link about dark matter. It's helpful but also lead to more questions about Fermilab. What is your position there, and do you have any involvement with cryogenics? -BHS honors class
Reply:
Hi,
I have worked with college students, graduate school students, and even some high school students here at our laboratory. In general, the high school students have had "internships" where they visited here for a day every week or two during the school year (2 or 3 have done that with me over the years) or else they worked here over the summer for several weeks (5-10 students have worked with me that way). Obviously, they were from a local high school within easy driving distance to the lab. The college students (3 or 4) have been here for summer internships in-between school years. Graduate students are typically working on their PhD degrees, and are usually here full-time by the time they work with me. I've had about 4 of those students overall.
We can usually find some interesting work for students to do, from helping to build apparatus for an experiment, or do computer programming, or using existing programs to help sift through data, make plots, etc. We had a series of students over the past few summers work here helping to locate "gravitational lenses" in photographs taken with a large telescope in New Mexico that Fermilab helped to build.
My position is "Scientist" at Fermilab, and I mostly work on large particle accelerators -- their design, construction, operation, fine-tuning. Our largest accelerator -- the Tevatron -- is made up of electromagnets that have superconducting coils. These coils are cooled to cryogenic temperatures -- 4 degrees above Absolute Zero! -- where they lose all of their electrical resistance and hence operate with essentially no power loss. So, I don' myself do any cryogenic engineering, but I do use cryogenic equipment a lot.
-Mike
5 Posts
Hello Dr. Syphers! Anyways we are interested in hearing more about your job and if you could please explain in more details what the accelarator is for. What is a typical day at the Fermilab? What other areas do you dabble in? p.s. any chance you can help us with a project we have?
Reply:
Hi WSHS!
Anyway, the accelerator at Fermilab is used to smash particles together to see what happens in an attempt to understand the most basic building blocks of matter and energy, and to learn more about how the universe works. You can see much more about it at: http://www.fnal.gov
Typically my day consists of many meetings, some work in our Control Room (where we run the accelerators) and sometimes I'm lucky and get to do some calculations and studies using the accelerators. Besides particle acceleration, I also like to study astrophysics; it was astronomy that really got me interested in science at at young age.
Cheers,
-Mike
p.s. -- when you say "help us with a project," exactly what did you have in mind?
Oct 14 2:26PM - Re: Re: Re: Introduction
5 Posts
Mike, Our High School is also very small and we're lucky their has not been a situation like that in our school. How is it like interacting with your students that choose to work at Fermilab with you? What are they able to do sense they have yet to graduate from collage? Is it like an internship for the students? Thank you for at the least, the link about dark matter. It's helpful but also lead to more questions about Fermilab. What is your position there, and do you have any involvement with cryogenics? -BHS honors class
Reply:
Hi,
I have worked with college students, graduate school students, and even some high school students here at our laboratory. In general, the high school students have had "internships" where they visited here for a day every week or two during the school year (2 or 3 have done that with me over the years) or else they worked here over the summer for several weeks (5-10 students have worked with me that way). Obviously, they were from a local high school within easy driving distance to the lab. The college students (3 or 4) have been here for summer internships in-between school years. Graduate students are typically working on their PhD degrees, and are usually here full-time by the time they work with me. I've had about 4 of those students overall.
We can usually find some interesting work for students to do, from helping to build apparatus for an experiment, or do computer programming, or using existing programs to help sift through data, make plots, etc. We had a series of students over the past few summers work here helping to locate "gravitational lenses" in photographs taken with a large telescope in New Mexico that Fermilab helped to build.
My position is "Scientist" at Fermilab, and I mostly work on large particle accelerators -- their design, construction, operation, fine-tuning. Our largest accelerator -- the Tevatron -- is made up of electromagnets that have superconducting coils. These coils are cooled to cryogenic temperatures -- 4 degrees above Absolute Zero! -- where they lose all of their electrical resistance and hence operate with essentially no power loss. So, I don' myself do any cryogenic engineering, but I do use cryogenic equipment a lot.
-Mike
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Adopted Again
Last Fall I ran a blog/discussion with three high school physics classes through the Adopt-A-Physicist program sponsored by Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics honor society, with aid from the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. The next few blog entries will be posts from that discussion. Names of students and institutions have been edited for privacy, but the content is original.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Introduction - Oct 12 10:33AM Mike Syphers
66 Posts
Hello, thank you for adopting me in the Adopt-a-Physicist program. To get an idea of who I am, you can view my profile.
-Mike Syphers
Particle Accelerators - Oct 12 3:22PM
4 Posts
Hello Dr. Syphers! We are three students from a high school in Wisconsin. Dr. Syphers, have you ever read the book Angels and Demons? It talks about particle accelerators. I was wondering, is Dan's description of these up-to-date? Did he exaggerate any of these details? Or, on the other hand, have there been advances in this field since he published this book?
Reply:
Hi!
Happy to hear from you! Yes, I've read Angels and Demons -- and saw the movie, too. I've also been to CERN, where the particle accelerator from the book is located. First of all, let me remind you that one purchases that book in the Fiction section of the bookstore(!). Dan's books have been very exciting to read (at least for me), but they have about as much fiction as what appears to be fact. As for the accelerator, there really is an "LHC" at CERN, though it hasn't successfully turned on yet. It also will not be used to make antimatter in any large quantities, so that's part of the fiction. The greatest exaggeration in the story is that the LHC would produce enough antimatter to generate a large explosion, which is hogwash. Here at Fermilab, we make more antimatter (antiprotons, to be specific) than any place on earth in our accelerators. If the Fermilab machines were used to make antiprotons at our full capacity, it would take about 500,000,000 years to make a gram of antiprotons. (Wouldn't have to worry about job security, eh?)
But, the cool thing is that antimatter does exist, we can make it, it does annihilate with regular matter to form pure energy, and we at Fermilab do collide protons with antiprotons to look at the particles that get created from this energy. We do it every day. And that's not science fiction! But if you told everyone that it was enough energy to light up a 4 Watt light bulb, you wouldn't sell all that many books...
Cheers,
-Mike
Re: Introduction - Oct 13 1:42PM
3 Posts
Hello Mr. Syphers, Greetings from New Jersey. Thank you for being one of our physicist's! We are very excited to have you. We here at our tiny little school are aware that you tought high school for only one year. What made you change your job? Do you miss it? Also at Fermilab was there a project which was set up for detecting dark matter that was passing through extremely cold plates in a chamber? If so did you work on it and did you discover anything?
Reply:
Hi BHS!
My H.S. teaching job was my first job out of college. I really enjoyed it, but it was a tough time for teachers at that school. It was a small school near Chicago, and there was a "tax referendum" that was voted on by the community, and they voted not to raise taxes for the school. SO, the school district laid off all of the first-year teachers. Oh well... BUT, there was a job opening just down the street at Fermilab, so I applied and got the job. The rest is ... history.
But, I never really got away from teaching. I learned my job and taught what I learned to others below me, and then I went back to college for my MS and PhD degrees. Since then, I've taught college courses quite a bit, and had many students work with me at Fermilab. So, it's still been very rewarding and teaching continues to be a big part of my life. (Like, Adopt-A-Physicist!)
As for the Dark Matter search, I personally did not work on that experiment. You can find more about it (if you haven't already) at: http://ppd.fnal.gov/experiments/cdms/
Best,
-Mike
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Introduction - Oct 12 10:33AM Mike Syphers
66 Posts
Hello, thank you for adopting me in the Adopt-a-Physicist program. To get an idea of who I am, you can view my profile.
-Mike Syphers
Particle Accelerators - Oct 12 3:22PM
4 Posts
Hello Dr. Syphers! We are three students from a high school in Wisconsin. Dr. Syphers, have you ever read the book Angels and Demons? It talks about particle accelerators. I was wondering, is Dan's description of these up-to-date? Did he exaggerate any of these details? Or, on the other hand, have there been advances in this field since he published this book?
Reply:
Hi!
Happy to hear from you! Yes, I've read Angels and Demons -- and saw the movie, too. I've also been to CERN, where the particle accelerator from the book is located. First of all, let me remind you that one purchases that book in the Fiction section of the bookstore(!). Dan's books have been very exciting to read (at least for me), but they have about as much fiction as what appears to be fact. As for the accelerator, there really is an "LHC" at CERN, though it hasn't successfully turned on yet. It also will not be used to make antimatter in any large quantities, so that's part of the fiction. The greatest exaggeration in the story is that the LHC would produce enough antimatter to generate a large explosion, which is hogwash. Here at Fermilab, we make more antimatter (antiprotons, to be specific) than any place on earth in our accelerators. If the Fermilab machines were used to make antiprotons at our full capacity, it would take about 500,000,000 years to make a gram of antiprotons. (Wouldn't have to worry about job security, eh?)
But, the cool thing is that antimatter does exist, we can make it, it does annihilate with regular matter to form pure energy, and we at Fermilab do collide protons with antiprotons to look at the particles that get created from this energy. We do it every day. And that's not science fiction! But if you told everyone that it was enough energy to light up a 4 Watt light bulb, you wouldn't sell all that many books...
Cheers,
-Mike
Re: Introduction - Oct 13 1:42PM
3 Posts
Hello Mr. Syphers, Greetings from New Jersey. Thank you for being one of our physicist's! We are very excited to have you. We here at our tiny little school are aware that you tought high school for only one year. What made you change your job? Do you miss it? Also at Fermilab was there a project which was set up for detecting dark matter that was passing through extremely cold plates in a chamber? If so did you work on it and did you discover anything?
Reply:
Hi BHS!
My H.S. teaching job was my first job out of college. I really enjoyed it, but it was a tough time for teachers at that school. It was a small school near Chicago, and there was a "tax referendum" that was voted on by the community, and they voted not to raise taxes for the school. SO, the school district laid off all of the first-year teachers. Oh well... BUT, there was a job opening just down the street at Fermilab, so I applied and got the job. The rest is ... history.
But, I never really got away from teaching. I learned my job and taught what I learned to others below me, and then I went back to college for my MS and PhD degrees. Since then, I've taught college courses quite a bit, and had many students work with me at Fermilab. So, it's still been very rewarding and teaching continues to be a big part of my life. (Like, Adopt-A-Physicist!)
As for the Dark Matter search, I personally did not work on that experiment. You can find more about it (if you haven't already) at: http://ppd.fnal.gov/experiments/cdms/
Best,
-Mike
Friday, July 3, 2009
Angels and Demons
Even though the movie has been out for a while now, I still receive questions from visitors to Fermilab about our production of antimatter, and whether there is any "validity" in the premise that a "bomb" could be produced using our supply, or the supply that the movie suggests will be generated by the LHC at CERN.
Besides the slight change in the ending (the movie's ending is much better than that in the book!), it was great to see some actual views of CERN and the LHC tunnel in the movie "Angels and Demons". One has to realize that the "control" of the accelerator is not underground nor just outside of the detector, but rather several kilometers away in an above-ground building. And the accelerator operators don't wear lab coats. And... But, the film has enough going for it to make it interesting. What's also interesting, which most people know by now, is that (a) the LHC at CERN will not be used to make antimatter, except as a result of individual particle collisions in the experiments, and (b) even if it were optimized to make antiparticles at an appreciable rate, it would take far too long to get the amount presented in the movie.
Let's make a simple calculation, using the highest antimatter production going on in the world today, the Fermilab Antiproton Source. At Fermilab, beams of protons are accelerated within several stages of accelerators to a final energy of 120 GeV per proton -- that means that each proton is accelerated through a net voltage of 120 Billion volts. The beam of protons is focused and sent into a target made of a Nickel alloy, where the energy of the collisions of the protons with the nuclei of the target is high enough that new particles can be created (E = mc^2). Any particles with a negative charge, and with a momentum of 8.9 GeV/c are collected in a storage ring that is made up of electromagnets and tuned to operate for that particular momentum. Many of those particles, like pions and kaons, etc., will very quickly decay away -- however, stable particles -- like antiprotons -- will remain forever (as far as we know) and can be collected in the ring. In the Fermilab facility, about 20 antiprotons with this particular momentum are collected for every one million (10^6) protons that hit the target.
Now, the facility can produce about 8 trillion (8 x 10^12) protons each with 120 GeV energy every 2.2 seconds to send to the target. That means that 8 x 10^12 x 20/10^6 = 160 x 10^6 antiprotons are produced every 2.2 sec. OR, 0.16 x 10^9 /2.2 s x 3600 s / hr = 26 x 10^10 antiprotons every hour (260 billion/hr).
Thus, if the facility ran non-stop (present conditions generate an effective "up-time" of about 70% throughout a typical year), for 1 billion years, then roughly 26 x 10^10 /hr x 24 hr/day x 365.24 days/ year x 10^9 (1 billion) years x 0.70 = 1.6 x 10^24 antiprotons would be generated.
Coincidentally, the mass of an antiproton is the same as the mass of a proton: 1.6 x 10^-24 gram. Thus, in a BILLION YEARS of running, we could produce *** 1 gram *** of antimatter!
OK, so the 1/4 gram of antimatter that goes "missing" in the movie would only take 250,000,000 years to generate...
"Yes, but couldn't we upgrade the Fermilab accelerator to do better?"
Indeed, if the targeting stations were upgraded, and we could use the full power of the "Main Injector" accelerator (which operates at 120 GeV/proton), then one could imagine 4 x 10^13 every 1.5 seconds at best -- a rate that would be 40/8 x 2.2/1.5 = 7 times better. THUS, it could generate 1/4 gram in "only" about 36 million years!
The other question often asked is, "Isn't the LHC much higher energy? So couldn't it make antimatter that much faster?"
First of all, the LHC can't ramp up and down in 2.2 seconds or anything close to that. It takes many minutes for the accelerator to reach full energy. So, even if it does have over 50 times the energy of the Fermilab Main Injector (it will contain, ultimately, roughly the same number of particles), it takes about 500 times longer to ramp up and down to its final energy. So, the "rate" that it could produce antiprotons is far less than what would be done at Fermlab's machine.
- - -
It's still cool that antimatter exists at all. And, that most of the antimatter produced and accumulated for scientific use in the world so far has been produced right outside of Chicago...
Aerial view of part of the Fermilab accelerator complex. The "oval"-shaped accelerator at the top is the Main Injector, which typically operates at 120 GeV per proton. The small "triangular" arrangement of buildings near the bottom house equipment for the Antiproton Source, located about 20 feet below the surface.
Besides the slight change in the ending (the movie's ending is much better than that in the book!), it was great to see some actual views of CERN and the LHC tunnel in the movie "Angels and Demons". One has to realize that the "control" of the accelerator is not underground nor just outside of the detector, but rather several kilometers away in an above-ground building. And the accelerator operators don't wear lab coats. And... But, the film has enough going for it to make it interesting. What's also interesting, which most people know by now, is that (a) the LHC at CERN will not be used to make antimatter, except as a result of individual particle collisions in the experiments, and (b) even if it were optimized to make antiparticles at an appreciable rate, it would take far too long to get the amount presented in the movie.
Let's make a simple calculation, using the highest antimatter production going on in the world today, the Fermilab Antiproton Source. At Fermilab, beams of protons are accelerated within several stages of accelerators to a final energy of 120 GeV per proton -- that means that each proton is accelerated through a net voltage of 120 Billion volts. The beam of protons is focused and sent into a target made of a Nickel alloy, where the energy of the collisions of the protons with the nuclei of the target is high enough that new particles can be created (E = mc^2). Any particles with a negative charge, and with a momentum of 8.9 GeV/c are collected in a storage ring that is made up of electromagnets and tuned to operate for that particular momentum. Many of those particles, like pions and kaons, etc., will very quickly decay away -- however, stable particles -- like antiprotons -- will remain forever (as far as we know) and can be collected in the ring. In the Fermilab facility, about 20 antiprotons with this particular momentum are collected for every one million (10^6) protons that hit the target.
Now, the facility can produce about 8 trillion (8 x 10^12) protons each with 120 GeV energy every 2.2 seconds to send to the target. That means that 8 x 10^12 x 20/10^6 = 160 x 10^6 antiprotons are produced every 2.2 sec. OR, 0.16 x 10^9 /2.2 s x 3600 s / hr = 26 x 10^10 antiprotons every hour (260 billion/hr).
Thus, if the facility ran non-stop (present conditions generate an effective "up-time" of about 70% throughout a typical year), for 1 billion years, then roughly 26 x 10^10 /hr x 24 hr/day x 365.24 days/ year x 10^9 (1 billion) years x 0.70 = 1.6 x 10^24 antiprotons would be generated.
Coincidentally, the mass of an antiproton is the same as the mass of a proton: 1.6 x 10^-24 gram. Thus, in a BILLION YEARS of running, we could produce *** 1 gram *** of antimatter!
OK, so the 1/4 gram of antimatter that goes "missing" in the movie would only take 250,000,000 years to generate...
"Yes, but couldn't we upgrade the Fermilab accelerator to do better?"
Indeed, if the targeting stations were upgraded, and we could use the full power of the "Main Injector" accelerator (which operates at 120 GeV/proton), then one could imagine 4 x 10^13 every 1.5 seconds at best -- a rate that would be 40/8 x 2.2/1.5 = 7 times better. THUS, it could generate 1/4 gram in "only" about 36 million years!
The other question often asked is, "Isn't the LHC much higher energy? So couldn't it make antimatter that much faster?"
First of all, the LHC can't ramp up and down in 2.2 seconds or anything close to that. It takes many minutes for the accelerator to reach full energy. So, even if it does have over 50 times the energy of the Fermilab Main Injector (it will contain, ultimately, roughly the same number of particles), it takes about 500 times longer to ramp up and down to its final energy. So, the "rate" that it could produce antiprotons is far less than what would be done at Fermlab's machine.
- - -
It's still cool that antimatter exists at all. And, that most of the antimatter produced and accumulated for scientific use in the world so far has been produced right outside of Chicago...
Aerial view of part of the Fermilab accelerator complex. The "oval"-shaped accelerator at the top is the Main Injector, which typically operates at 120 GeV per proton. The small "triangular" arrangement of buildings near the bottom house equipment for the Antiproton Source, located about 20 feet below the surface.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Fermilab
hello! my name is Grace. I noticed your forum avatar (profile picture?) it's an interesting symbol and i don't think i've seen it before. what does the symbol mean. what does it represent?
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Hi Grace!
The avatar is actually the official logo of the laboratory where I work -- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It actually does have a story. The laboratory houses the world's most powerful particle accelerator, or "atom smasher." This machine guides charged particles (protons and antiprotons) around in a circular path, and eventually smashes them into each other to see what happens. The accelerator has about 1000 very powerful electromagnets in it. Some of the electromagnets (about 780 of them) are used simply to steer the beam in its circular path. The other large magnets (about 220 of them) are used to keep the beam of particles "focused" around this path.
I've attached a figure to look at now. The picture shows three different kinds of electromagnets used in accelerators. The first one on the left has four "poles", and is represented by the four curved lines in the avatar. The second one has two poles (up and down) -- the magnetic field lines go from bottom (North pole) to top (South pole) inside the hole in the center. The two horizontal lines in the avatar represent this "dipole" design.
Anyway, Fermilab was the first lab whose accelerator was made out of a combination of dipole-style magnets and quadrupole-style magnets. So that is why it this logo was chosen for the laboratory.
You can visit the Fermilab web site at: http://www.fnal.gov where the logo is used quite a lot!
Thanks,
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I just picked you for my physicist for our project and I was interested to hear how you liked working at Fermilab
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Hi,
I enjoy working there very much. It is a very exciting place to be, with people from all over the world coming together to study the physical world. You can get a lot of information about the lab at our web page: http://www.fnal.gov . As you might notice, it has a lot of interesting architecture, wildlife, cool "toys" to play with, and great people. It's really a nice life, I'd have to say.
Thanks for your question!
- - -
Hi Grace!
The avatar is actually the official logo of the laboratory where I work -- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It actually does have a story. The laboratory houses the world's most powerful particle accelerator, or "atom smasher." This machine guides charged particles (protons and antiprotons) around in a circular path, and eventually smashes them into each other to see what happens. The accelerator has about 1000 very powerful electromagnets in it. Some of the electromagnets (about 780 of them) are used simply to steer the beam in its circular path. The other large magnets (about 220 of them) are used to keep the beam of particles "focused" around this path.
I've attached a figure to look at now. The picture shows three different kinds of electromagnets used in accelerators. The first one on the left has four "poles", and is represented by the four curved lines in the avatar. The second one has two poles (up and down) -- the magnetic field lines go from bottom (North pole) to top (South pole) inside the hole in the center. The two horizontal lines in the avatar represent this "dipole" design.
Anyway, Fermilab was the first lab whose accelerator was made out of a combination of dipole-style magnets and quadrupole-style magnets. So that is why it this logo was chosen for the laboratory.
You can visit the Fermilab web site at: http://www.fnal.gov where the logo is used quite a lot!
Thanks,
- - -
I just picked you for my physicist for our project and I was interested to hear how you liked working at Fermilab
-----
Hi,
I enjoy working there very much. It is a very exciting place to be, with people from all over the world coming together to study the physical world. You can get a lot of information about the lab at our web page: http://www.fnal.gov . As you might notice, it has a lot of interesting architecture, wildlife, cool "toys" to play with, and great people. It's really a nice life, I'd have to say.
Thanks for your question!
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