• Question: What do you hope to see from the LHC?

    Asked by breem001 to Mark, Katharine, Ben, Jony, Peter on 21 Nov 2011. This question was also asked by astroaaron.
    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      I would be interested in the science personaly but for my work its the technology that is developed which is really exciting. Especially the new stuff for dealing with really big data files.

    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      If we saw something totally unexpected that would be great because it would mean that we did not understand Nature as well as we thought – this means that there is much more about the Universe to discover which is exciting. Higgs smiggs – give some crazy unexpected particles!

    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      Like Ben, I’d like to see something no-one expected out of the LHC, and early signs are that might be exactly what happens!
      I’d also like to see some bit of technology come out of it that we’ll all use in our everyday lives, like touchscreens. Early touchscreens were developed at CERN in the 1970’s, now almost everyone has one in their pocket.

    • Photo: Peter Williams

      Peter Williams answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      Well, at the top of the list is understanding why things have mass. Then why there is more matter than antimatter.

      In terms of the technology, we’ve already seen the application of superconducting magnets – these are now used in hospitals as MRI machines.

    • Photo: Jony Hudson

      Jony Hudson answered on 21 Nov 2011:

      The best thing of all would be if they didn’t find the Higgs particle.

      A lot of people sort of assume that the Higgs particle _must_ exist, even though there’s no evidence for it! So I’d love it if they were proven wrong :-p

Comments

  • Photo: breem001

    breem001 commented on :

    Thanks!

  • Photo: astroaaron

    astroaaron commented on :

    People have said, for example, that if the neutrino could travel faster than the speed of light, we could possibly travel back in time. But how could the particle actually be utilised to allow this to happen? 🙂

    • Photo: Ben

      Ben commented on :

      The only way we could utilise it would be to send neutrino messages into the past or future. Because of the ghostly nature of the neutrino and how difficult it is to detect the technology is some way off for this. Even if we can’t use neutrinos to send messages through time, neutrino communication would still be a great technology for when humankind starts to explore the Universe – neutrino signals would not get distorted as they travelled cosmic distances but light (electromagnetic) signals would.