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Ever since a first burning tree has been spotted by humans, we were fascinated by fire - that emazing source of energy. Our caves become the labs of that time and soon we were full of ideas on how TO USE this energy. Homo erectus, ~400 000 BC. Ages passed away and new energy sources were discovered. Some of them safe, some of them not. We could heat our meal, we could break the stone. Many people died because of the power hidden inside nitroglycerin and many more would follow if Alfread Nobel would not discover a simple way TO CONTROL it. Alfred Nobel's lab, 1867. It must be some kind of irony inside us that now, and only now, when we know how to use it and how to control it, we are finally putting all our energy "just" TO UNDERSTAND it. LHC, CERN, today.
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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator - it takes simple protons up to almost the speed of light and smashes them together inside four enormous detectors named ATLAS, CNS, LHCb and ALICE. The detectors track and record the collision debris, and physicists sift through the data to search for new particles (like the famous Higgs Boson) or new phenomena like supersymmetry or extra dimensions. The model showcases all four of the detectors, but only includes a representative part of the LHC - the real LHC fills a 27km circular tunnel, and at this scale would still measure around 14m across! The detectors themselves use cutaway walls to reveal all of the interior mechanisms, and every major component is represented by a Lego brick: ATLAS, my favourite: (I'm being unashamedly biased - as a PhD student I use data from this detector to study the Higgs boson!) CMS: LHCb: ALICE: They aren't strictly in scale with each other, for example LHCb should be on a 4x4 base to properly match ATLAS, but I think it gives the set a more uniform look and it also let me cram in a lot more detail then I would have otherwise managed. The project is currently listed on Lego Ideas (https://ideas.lego.com/projects/94885), so if you like it I'd appreciate your vote. However, I'm more interested in what you guys think of the models - I've seen some stunning builds on here, and I'd love to know what you think about the techniques I've used, or if there are ways of improving the models that I've missed. If you want to build the LHC yourselves, I've got detailed instruction manuals available from here: http://build-your-ow...hc-micro-models. The site's well worth checking out for some other fabulous Lego models of detectors at CERN (though not designed by me!). Cheers Nathan
