LHC Starts Collisions; and a Radio Interview Tonight

In the long and careful process of restarting the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] after its two-year nap for upgrades and repairs, another milestone has been reached: protons have once again collided inside the LHC’s experimental detectors (named ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and ALICE). This is good news, but don’t get excited yet. It’s just one small step. These are collisions at the lowest energy at which the LHC operates (450 GeV per proton, to be compared with the 4000 GeV per proton in 2012 and the 6500 GeV per proton they’ve already achieved in the last month, though in non-colliding beams.) Also the number of protons in the beams, and the number of collisions per second, is still very, very small compared to what will be needed. So discoveries are not imminent!  Yesterday’s milestone was just one of the many little tests that are made to assure that the LHC is properly set up and ready for the first full-energy collisions, which should start in about a month.

But since full-energy collisions are on the horizon, why not listen to a radio show about what the LHC will be doing after its restart is complete? Today (Wednesday May 6th), Virtually Speaking Science, on which I have appeared a couple of times before, will run a program at 5 pm Pacific time (8 pm Eastern). Science writer Alan Boyle will be interviewing me about the LHC’s plans for the next few months and the coming years. You can listen live, or listen later once they post it.  Here’s the link for the program.