CERN

[John 6:29]

I was wondering if anyone has some good places where I can get generally understanding of how CERN works. I've watched various things on it, but I'm looking for more. I'm currently working on a novel, and part of the main plot is going to be related to an incident with the CERN project (Well, an equivalent in my book).

[dr2005]

It depends on whether you want information on CERN as in the European Organisation for Nuclear Research or on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) itself. In either case, your best bet is probably straight from the horse's mouth so to speak:

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/About-en.html
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html

Failing that, Wikipedia is also good for general information on the LHC experiment. For more detailed information on it you're probably going to need to start looking into scientific journals, but hopefully the above are all good starting points. CERN's website also has a Spotlight on section with some interesting material about its work, including an article on Angels and Demons which may be of interest to you if you're thinking of using the LHC or something similar in your novel.

Hope that helps.

[John 6:29]

Originally Posted by dr2005

It depends on whether you want information on CERN as in the European Organisation for Nuclear Research or on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) itself. In either case, your best bet is probably straight from the horse's mouth so to speak:

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/About-en.html
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html

Failing that, Wikipedia is also good for general information on the LHC experiment. For more detailed information on it you're probably going to need to start looking into scientific journals, but hopefully the above are all good starting points. CERN's website also has a Spotlight on section with some interesting material about its work, including an article on Angels and Demons which may be of interest to you if you're thinking of using the LHC or something similar in your novel.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, I'm just trying to get as much as I can. LHC is going to be apart of it, but it's going to go wrong in the novel, as I've read from various other scientists opposed to the idea that it could potentially cause a mass black hole. I don't know though. I may just make something up, but it seems to me CERN would be cooler to use because it makes it more realistic and relative to our time. But who knows. I change my mind about 1,000,000 times during novel writing.

[QuantumModulus]

The claim that the LHC can form a black hole has been completely and utterly denounced by every single respectable scientist working in the field; it simply doesn't work, mathematically, or in accordance with the laws of physics. I know that it's for a novel, but like Dave referred to, there is at least some form of very minor realistic semblance to actual physics in Angels & Demons, as opposed to the big load of crap written by religious zealots and popularizers of science who want to scare people with the idea of a few thousand protons smashing into each other. I might mention to you that that novel became pretty damn popular, and a big part of it was because of the fact that it was kinda...correct, in a limited sense. Physics got a lot of temporary limelight as well.

You'll be able to get any information you'll ever need about the LHC just by doing research on CERN's webpages; from what I can tell they're pretty comprehensive.

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

I quickly looked on Scopus for CERN and there's over 12,000 papers but after filtering some stuff out, I found papers that are less in-depth. Keep in mind, these are research papers, particularly reviews (experimental articles may be more in-depth, although not always the case). You may be able to find abstracts of the papers online, however, if you want the entire paper I can send some to you in PDF form. If you're lucky, certain papers may be fully viewed online without additional payments. If you want basic information, then Dave's links would do but if you want particular references, models, diagrams and data that don't go in excessive detail, I've found several. Alternatively, if you do want the more comprehensive detailed stuff, there's thousands of articles so you'd need to give me specific terms/words or simply a date range, journal name, author name and so forth. The best one is below (abstract and figures only):

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture06077.html

If you want the full version (for this or another article), I cannot post a link but can e-mail it to you in PDF form.

I'm not sure if the following link is of interest to you but check it out anyway, abstract and figures only:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture09509.html

[dr2005]

Originally Posted by John 6:29

Yeah, I'm just trying to get as much as I can. LHC is going to be apart of it, but it's going to go wrong in the novel, as I've read from various other scientists opposed to the idea that it could potentially cause a mass black hole. I don't know though. I may just make something up, but it seems to me CERN would be cooler to use because it makes it more realistic and relative to our time. But who knows. I change my mind about 1,000,000 times during novel writing.

As Jorge said, the black hole theory isn't viewed as a credible problem - it may very well cause "mini black holes" (always seems a funny way to describe superconcentrated gravitational forces if you ask me) but they would be a result of the particle collisions and as such would exist for fractions of a second if that. They certainly wouldn't have enough time to do damage. Depending on how well it fits in with your story, you could look at things like the consequences of something like physical failure of part of the LHC (uncontrolled particles travelling at 99.9% of the speed of light could cause a fair bit of damage after all) as an alternative.

Originally Posted by The Man And XX Master

I quickly looked on Scopus for CERN and there's over 12,000 papers but after filtering some stuff out, I found papers that are less in-depth. Keep in mind, these are research papers, particularly reviews (experimental articles may be more in-depth, although not always the case). You may be able to find abstracts of the papers online, however, if you want the entire paper I can send some to you in PDF form. If you're lucky, certain papers may be fully viewed online without additional payments. If you want basic information, then Dave's links would do but if you want particular references, models, diagrams and data that don't go in excessive detail, I've found several. Alternatively, if you do want the more comprehensive detailed stuff, there's thousands of articles so you'd need to give me specific terms/words or simply a date range, journal name, author name and so forth. The best one is below (abstract and figures only):

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture06077.html

If you want the full version (for this or another article), I cannot post a link but can e-mail it to you in PDF form.

I'm not sure if the following link is of interest to you but check it out anyway, abstract and figures only:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture09509.html

See, this is why I leave the deeper scientific research to people like you - you're just better at it.

[John 6:29]

Originally Posted by QuantumModulus

The claim that the LHC can form a black hole has been completely and utterly denounced by every single respectable scientist working in the field; it simply doesn't work, mathematically, or in accordance with the laws of physics. I know that it's for a novel, but like Dave referred to, there is at least some form of very minor realistic semblance to actual physics in Angels & Demons, as opposed to the big load of crap written by religious zealots and popularizers of science who want to scare people with the idea of a few thousand protons smashing into each other. I might mention to you that that novel became pretty damn popular, and a big part of it was because of the fact that it was kinda...correct, in a limited sense. Physics got a lot of temporary limelight as well.

You'll be able to get any information you'll ever need about the LHC just by doing research on CERN's webpages; from what I can tell they're pretty comprehensive.

Actually there was a debate about it by another agnostic scientist, not a religious zealot. I've sided with the people at CERN, however, as you said, it's a novel. Which is why I also mentioned that I'd use something similar, though not CERN, because I know it's not probable. But the idea sparked from the debate about CERN, so I'm using it for a basis of the "accident" that occurs in my story. I don't plan to go into much detail about it in the book, as it's really not necessary, but I suppose some answers would be nice for some readers. :P

[John 6:29]

Thanks Nick, somehow I missed your post?