Matthew Strassler
Rutgers University
Monday, October
19, 2009
4:00 pm in SPL 57
The Large Hadron Collider: What's it For, and What's at Stake?
Abstract: After many years of design and construction, and a year of technical challenges, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's most powerful particle accelerator, is ready for operations. The LHC was designed to probe the energy scale and distance scale characteristic of the weak nuclear interaction, a force less appreciated but no less important to our lives than gravity or electromagnetism. I will discuss the mysteries that motivated high-energy physicists to build the LHC, describe some of the challenges of operating it and interpreting its data, and examine its historical importance and scientific potential.
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