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>For all we know, we might need a solar system size collider to attain the required energies. We just need to observe the collisions happening at these energie
by cthalupa 7y ago
>For all we know, we might need a solar system size collider to attain the required energies.
We just need to observe the collisions happening at these energies - we don't necessarily need to produce them ourselves.
Some physicists are starting to think about how we might be able to observe naturally occurring collisions at these energy levels rather than producing them ourselves.
- nategri 7y agoIIRC that only buys you 2-3 orders over LHC energy.
- Filligree 7y agoConsidering this would represent a continent-sized collider... I'll take it.
- ufmace 7y agoAIUI, the trick with colliders isn't so much creating high-energy collisions, but creating them exactly inside gigantic detectors that can measure what happens in those collisions, as well as the collisions having a known amount of energy and contents.
- cthalupa 7y agoWell, to the best of my understanding, both are an issue with current colliders. I've not read any of the papers around the idea of observing collisions caused by high energy events elsewhere in the galaxy/universe, but the articles I read made it sound like this would solve a portion of the problem that we otherwise might not be able to without a solar system sized collider. They didn't make it sound like this would be anything we could do anytime soon, however. But potentially sooner than we'd be able to generate the energy needed to cause collisions at those energy levels. I'm having trouble finding the articles I've read on the subject - I'll follow back up if I do manage to find 'em.