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Uncategorized Saturday, May 5th 2012 at 11:04 am

What Would Happen If You Put Your Hand In the LHC?

When the Sixty Symbols folks asked experts what would happen if your hand happened to find its way into the Large Hadron Collider beam, they were told “nothing good.” To get a more nuanced answer, they turned to scientists at CERN. Their response was far more graphic, and gives insight into the incredible forces at work within the LHC. Watch the video, and be amazed.

The scientists at CERN explain that since the beam inside the Large Hadron Collider has energy on par with something as massive as an aircraft carrier moving at top speed, but focused to less than a millimeter across, it would certainly burn through your hand. Of course, you probably wouldn’t notice because your entire body would be irradiated in the process.

Science can be scary.

(via Engadget)

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  • Anonymous

    Sounds quite pleasent.

  • Anonymous

    You would be seriously fvcked and die quickly. You would be screwed just being anywhere inside the tunnel, let alone right next to the beam.

    When I was in graduate school in nuclear physics at Duke, some nimrod taped up a safety interlock and left a massive shielding door open. This allowed my best friend to walk right through a high-intensity, energetic neutron beam. The beam was right at head level, so he got a serious dose right to the old brain. At least these weren’t CERN-level energies. When he saw the flashing light indicating a high neutron flux, he ran out, went to the control room and came close to physically assaulting some folks.

    Sadly, he drowned at a relatively young age, so the long term effects never became an issue. I still miss you Mark!