For the waiting world, and indeed for most of us here at CERN, ‘the LHC schedule’ simply means the date that the LHC will restart - and we only take notice when that end-date changes. But in fact the schedule is a constantly evolving intricate document coordinating all the repairs, consolidation and commissioning in every part of the machine. So, what actually goes on behind the scenes in timing and planning all the work on one of the most complex scientific instruments ever built?
After a long silence the LHC@home devs have surfaced on their home page promising new work. Encouraged by this I went to see, on the BOINC home page, the video and Power Point presentation on LHC@home given by Ben Segal of CERN at the Taiwan workshop on distributed volunteer computing held in April. From what I could understand (three Power Point slides turned black on my Open Office), CERN has the problem that while all its software runs on Linux, most of the volunteers still use Windows. So CERN has thought of a Virtual Machine to be installed, together with the BOINC client, on the users' PC, enabling them to run physics programs besides SixTrack. It should not weigh more than 100 MB. It is called CernVM. Stay tuned.
Tullio
Report hints at the existence of a new and massive elementary particle
In a weak moment, researchers have found an unexpected asymmetry in particle production that could hint at exotic physics. The tentative evidence, announced August 21, could be the fingerprint of a massive elementary particle that would help unify three of the four known forces in nature.
The physicists collected data for nearly a decade at the Belle particle accelerator experiment in Tsukuba, Japan. In the experiment, known as a B factory, beams of electrons and positrons collide to produce millions of pairs of B mesons and anti-B mesons. Such particles live brief but eventful lives, decaying through the weak nuclear force — the same force that powers some radioactivity and helps keep the sun burning.
Report hints at the existence of a new and massive elementary particle
In a weak moment, researchers have found an unexpected asymmetry in particle production that could hint at exotic physics. The tentative evidence, announced August 21, could be the fingerprint of a massive elementary particle that would help unify three of the four known forces in nature.
The physicists collected data for nearly a decade at the Belle particle accelerator experiment in Tsukuba, Japan. In the experiment, known as a B factory, beams of electrons and positrons collide to produce millions of pairs of B mesons and anti-B mesons. Such particles live brief but eventful lives, decaying through the weak nuclear force — the same force that powers some radioactivity and helps keep the sun burning.
"But with only about 230 of the rare B meson decays generated at Belle so far, the team can’t yet reach a firm conclusion."
All over a period of ten years of a phenomenal number of collisions.
With such a vanishingly rare phenomena, how can you be sure that you're not actually seeing the interaction with a third (unexpected) entity such as a cosmic ray?...
The next generation of experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider,
above, a powerful particle accelerator beneath the border of Switzerland and France, will be even more data-intensive.
London
In a vault beneath the British Library here, Jeremy Leighton John grapples with a formidable challenge in digital life. Dr. John, the library's first curator of eManuscripts, is working on ways to archive the deluge of computer data swamping scientists so that future generations can authenticate today's discoveries and better understand the people who made them.
His task is only getting harder. Scientists who collaborate via email, Google, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook are leaving fewer paper trails, while the information technologies that do document their accomplishments can be incomprehensible to other researchers and historians trying to read them. Computer-intensive experiments and the software used to analyze their output generate millions of gigabytes of data that are stored or retrieved by electronic systems that quickly become obsolete.
If you go to the BOINC home page you'll see that that CERN, the UN and Geneva University have joined in a Citizen Cyberscience Center to promote volunteer computing. And the talk by CERN's Ben Segal at the Taiwan Workshop of last April mentions a CernVM Virtual machine which would allow users with Windows to run Linux programs from CERN on their PCs. So, although the LHC@home is still not giving any work,it is likely that CERN will explore the possibility of using BOINC to process LHC data.
Tullio
Well, sort of. Low statistics are a killer for such theorems. They should re-phrase by saying that results are consistent with the null ( no effect ) hypothesis, or even better : that no conclusions are yet supported by the data ( beyond the well known weak force symmetry breaking ).
The chain of deduction for the presence of virtual particles is ambitious at best ( by the definition of virtual ) so the attribution of anomalous counts to such a specific explanation is optimistic. As Martin says, it could be sheer happenstance. Would they be publishing if the effect was of the same magnitude but opposing the desired conclusion?
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Has anyone ever contacted the LHC folk to see if they're ever going to do anything about the fact that certain IP addresses are still being blocked? I'd do it myself, but in order to maintain contact with them I'd have to take a machine off of the network and keep it on a dial-up modem. (Two different ISP's involved, so only the DSL provider is blocked.) Unfortunately, that's not a real practical solution for me.
To the pessimists out there, the 3.5 TeV starting energy of the LHC will be like a half-empty glass. However, the thousands of physicists working at the experiments certainly do not share these feelings. On the contrary, they are as excited as ever since they will be the first to observe what happens to matter in these (still) unprecedented conditions
CERN - the LHC schedule
)
CERN - the LHC schedule
For the waiting world, and indeed for most of us here at CERN, ‘the LHC schedule’ simply means the date that the LHC will restart - and we only take notice when that end-date changes. But in fact the schedule is a constantly evolving intricate document coordinating all the repairs, consolidation and commissioning in every part of the machine. So, what actually goes on behind the scenes in timing and planning all the work on one of the most complex scientific instruments ever built?
read more here
After a long silence the
)
After a long silence the LHC@home devs have surfaced on their home page promising new work. Encouraged by this I went to see, on the BOINC home page, the video and Power Point presentation on LHC@home given by Ben Segal of CERN at the Taiwan workshop on distributed volunteer computing held in April. From what I could understand (three Power Point slides turned black on my Open Office), CERN has the problem that while all its software runs on Linux, most of the volunteers still use Windows. So CERN has thought of a Virtual Machine to be installed, together with the BOINC client, on the users' PC, enabling them to run physics programs besides SixTrack. It should not weigh more than 100 MB. It is called CernVM. Stay tuned.
Tullio
Particle imbalance may upset
)
Particle imbalance may upset the apple cart
Report hints at the existence of a new and massive elementary particle
In a weak moment, researchers have found an unexpected asymmetry in particle production that could hint at exotic physics. The tentative evidence, announced August 21, could be the fingerprint of a massive elementary particle that would help unify three of the four known forces in nature.
The physicists collected data for nearly a decade at the Belle particle accelerator experiment in Tsukuba, Japan. In the experiment, known as a B factory, beams of electrons and positrons collide to produce millions of pairs of B mesons and anti-B mesons. Such particles live brief but eventful lives, decaying through the weak nuclear force — the same force that powers some radioactivity and helps keep the sun burning.
read more here:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46728/description/Particle_imbalance_may_upset_the_apple_cart
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/46728/description/Particle_imbalance_may_upset_the_apple_cart
RE: Particle imbalance may
)
An interesting article, thanks.
"But with only about 230 of the rare B meson decays generated at Belle so far, the team can’t yet reach a firm conclusion."
All over a period of ten years of a phenomenal number of collisions.
With such a vanishingly rare phenomena, how can you be sure that you're not actually seeing the interaction with a third (unexpected) entity such as a cosmic ray?...
Keep searchin',
Martin
See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)
A Data Deluge Swamps Science
)
A Data Deluge Swamps Science Historians
The next generation of experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider,
above, a powerful particle accelerator beneath the border of Switzerland and France, will be even more data-intensive.
London
In a vault beneath the British Library here, Jeremy Leighton John grapples with a formidable challenge in digital life. Dr. John, the library's first curator of eManuscripts, is working on ways to archive the deluge of computer data swamping scientists so that future generations can authenticate today's discoveries and better understand the people who made them.
His task is only getting harder. Scientists who collaborate via email, Google, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook are leaving fewer paper trails, while the information technologies that do document their accomplishments can be incomprehensible to other researchers and historians trying to read them. Computer-intensive experiments and the software used to analyze their output generate millions of gigabytes of data that are stored or retrieved by electronic systems that quickly become obsolete.
read more here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125139942345664387.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125139942345664387.html
If you go to the BOINC home
)
If you go to the BOINC home page you'll see that that CERN, the UN and Geneva University have joined in a Citizen Cyberscience Center to promote volunteer computing. And the talk by CERN's Ben Segal at the Taiwan Workshop of last April mentions a CernVM Virtual machine which would allow users with Windows to run Linux programs from CERN on their PCs. So, although the LHC@home is still not giving any work,it is likely that CERN will explore the possibility of using BOINC to process LHC data.
Tullio
RE: Particle imbalance
)
Well, sort of. Low statistics are a killer for such theorems. They should re-phrase by saying that results are consistent with the null ( no effect ) hypothesis, or even better : that no conclusions are yet supported by the data ( beyond the well known weak force symmetry breaking ).
The chain of deduction for the presence of virtual particles is ambitious at best ( by the definition of virtual ) so the attribution of anomalous counts to such a specific explanation is optimistic. As Martin says, it could be sheer happenstance. Would they be publishing if the effect was of the same magnitude but opposing the desired conclusion?
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
RE: I might be wrong but I
)
There really aren't second class.
It's the IT of lHC itself and the scientist there provide the calculations to be done.
It's only that there isn't a constant stream.
When there is work, it get sucked out in a few hours.
I have done some LHC, The LHC itself needs to run then it will get more active.
Although they have done allot of work for the re-install of the project.
When they are getting to the fine-tune, they will get more work out.
For curiosity. . . Has
)
For curiosity. . .
Has anyone ever contacted the LHC folk to see if they're ever going to do anything about the fact that certain IP addresses are still being blocked? I'd do it myself, but in order to maintain contact with them I'd have to take a machine off of the network and keep it on a dial-up modem. (Two different ISP's involved, so only the DSL provider is blocked.) Unfortunately, that's not a real practical solution for me.
To the pessimists out there,
)
To the pessimists out there, the 3.5 TeV starting energy of the LHC will be like a half-empty glass. However, the thousands of physicists working at the experiments certainly do not share these feelings. On the contrary, they are as excited as ever since they will be the first to observe what happens to matter in these (still) unprecedented conditions
CERN bulletin 37-38/2009 released 4 September 2009
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/?name=CERNBulletin&ln=en&issue=37/2009
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/journal/?name=CERNBulletin&ln=en&issue=37/2009