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See the original image at img388.imageshack.us —

LHC: Screenshot from the control room

img388.imageshack.us — Wonder what all this means....

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  • amrush, on 09/10/2008, -6/+76It means that KDE is good enough to start a big bang ..
    • bianconeri4ever, on 09/10/2008, -11/+2Doubt that it's KDE
      • litter, on 09/10/2008, -1/+2It sure looks like it :)
      • directedition, on 09/11/2008, -0/+4I'm not sure anything else uses Keramik..... I'm not sure any other window manages would want to.

        Come on CERN, use Plastik! It's much better!
    • Sabretou, on 09/11/2008, -1/+6ApoKalypse!
    • brundlefly76, on 09/11/2008, -2/+3They seriously need a graphic designer to help them with their visualization.
      Looks like a VGA version of an early Quake editor.



      • drakenlot, on 09/11/2008, -2/+6No, they don't need one.

        This gets the job done fine.
      • Renork, on 09/11/2008, -2/+5They do simply because public interest and approval of such experiments are the only way to successfully continue them. Especially with a project that has received so much press and is as much in the public eye as the LHC is right now. Adding aesthetically pleasing and detailed visualizations, even if only as a secondary thing for public releases, as long as it does not hurt functionality at all, would be only a good thing.
      • brundlefly76, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1drakenlot: how would you know?
    • etruscan, on 09/11/2008, -1/+1Or... not.
    • fluxion, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2it means the LHC operators have been playing Nethack all day
  • S5S5S5, on 09/10/2008, -3/+25It's KDE alright.

    http://digg.com/linux_unix/The_LHC_is_using_KDE
  • mordochai, on 09/11/2008, -7/+70I would think that the most advanced thing...ever should have at least 16bit graphics.
    • tedrock, on 09/11/2008, -9/+1this is the worlds most advanced thing?
      • zantos420, on 09/11/2008, -0/+5know anything else that creates lightspeed effects?
      • potifar, on 09/11/2008, -0/+7Yes, it is in fact the most advanced thing.
    • kiiwii, on 09/11/2008, -1/+8Reminds me of MS Paint!
    • drakenlot, on 09/11/2008, -2/+27That would be an exercise in redundacy.

      They need the data, not a CGI animation of it.

      This lets them see any info in the simplest and easiest form.
    • skywake, on 09/11/2008, -3/+9Its visual representations of various things... its not a game. Making it look pretty would be a waste of time.
    • jocnnor, on 09/11/2008, -0/+31Take it from CSI or any like show. You need 3D animated graphics to deduce anything from the information. Hell, even a spectrum analysis needs to be in 3d and rotating before it makes any sense to them on the show...
    • Avaseal, on 09/11/2008, -2/+4It's not a movie, it's a way to document and represent data as efficiently as possible.. god damn son.
    • bstew22, on 09/11/2008, -0/+6I agree... i want a hologram to pop out of my screen and show me all of the data. seriously... if it can't do that?... ***** thing sucks.
    • Evilblobs, on 09/11/2008, -1/+3What it really needs is some antialiasing.
      • TraumaPony, on 09/12/2008, -0/+1THAT one I agree with.

        Hell, in most graphics libraries, it's like three lines of code to enable it :/
  • Andrwmorph, on 09/11/2008, -2/+11Those are some sweet squiggly lines there!
    • ditka354, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2What's with the four armed man in the bottom left picture?
      • TVarmy, on 09/11/2008, -0/+4He's from the future. He's riding the wormhole we created to go and create some time paradoxes. Why would he do that? He's got four arms, and he's pissed at existence.
  • mwaleed86, on 09/11/2008, -6/+2ok
  • FullClip, on 09/11/2008, -7/+1Mmmmmm... Uber Nedr goodness....
  • DivineMonkey, on 09/11/2008, -14/+7KDE sucks!
  • iCanHasUsername, on 09/11/2008, -4/+37...and then I said "Super Collider? But I only just met her."
    • innocentsinner, on 09/11/2008, -9/+5...and then I took a joke from XKCD.
      • iCanHasUsername, on 09/11/2008, -0/+8Actually, Futurama. Perhaps someone forgot to submit XKCD to Digg that day.
    • Oppslagsverk, on 09/11/2008, -1/+6Okay, a nerdy remark here: This is not a Super Collider. The SuperCollider was a planned project in Waxahachie, Texas, but was canceled in 1993. The planned circumference of the Collider was by far larger than the Large Collider in Switzerland with its 87.1 km.

      Sorry if you were referring to the programming language, or by any means, sex.
      I need to get out more.
      • Andyschism, on 09/11/2008, -1/+3Or laid . . . .
      • Oppslagsverk, on 09/11/2008, -0/+5What is laid? Is it some kind of alcoholic beverage that you can consume?
      • iCanHasUsername, on 09/11/2008, -1/+5Pretty sure you're right. I seem to recall seeing it the other day...

        http://i38.tinypic.com/fms1ef.jpg

        [no need to point it out, I know I am going straight to hell for that]
      • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -4/+2haha - you Americans were going to build a bigger and better one huh... well why didn't you? it would have saved us Europeans a few quid!!
      • honesttussey, on 09/11/2008, -0/+9"haha - you Americans were going to build a bigger and better one huh... well why didn't you? it would have saved us Europeans a few quid!!"

        We would rather teach creationism in school.
      • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -1/+3haha! good point actually - how will creationism fit in with the findings of the LHC experiments!! another 'test of faith' no doubt!
    • HonestAbe, on 09/11/2008, -1/+1It is not a Super Collider. It is a Large Hard-on Collider.
  • Doomsan, on 09/11/2008, -2/+35I hope Gordon is doing his job.
    • Mawds, on 09/11/2008, -0/+4I'm sure he has his crowbar ready and primed for action.
  • GeneralZod77, on 09/11/2008, -2/+144Live webcam if anyone is interested...

    http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html
    • Phoenix99, on 09/11/2008, -0/+11Ok.. Now turn your metal ring to the right.. Yeah.. That's it.. Just like that..
    • davidkeithjones, on 09/11/2008, -3/+2Nice
    • chrispix, on 09/11/2008, -0/+21That rocks! It looks like they are starting an experiment, the red ligh
    • elarson, on 09/11/2008, -2/+2hahah! brilliant!
    • BitKid, on 09/11/2008, -3/+2bwahahahahahahahah....*zooooop*....
    • teebird, on 09/11/2008, -0/+30I think that was the quantum physics equivalent of being "Rick Rolled."
      • GeneralZod77, on 09/11/2008, -2/+0That's the first thing I thought when I came across this link!
      • Ki77erB, on 09/11/2008, -2/+0Yep, you just got "Black Hole Rolled bitch!"
    • zantos420, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3i wonder if anyone got up from their desk and ran...
      • loneBoat, on 09/11/2008, -1/+4Where would they run to?
      • zantos420, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3away? honestly though i think it's human instinct to just run. you have to try even if you will fail. remember independence day when everyone was running down the streets away from the blast and still died? they probably knew their death was imminent but they still had to try and run away lol
      • everlaster, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3I almost freaked out!
      • CaptainCumshot, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3Zantos, did you just use a sci-fi action movie about space aliens invading planet earth to justify humans attempting to run from a black hole?
      • zantos420, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2it was just a reference that people would likely understand. ask yourself though, if you saw a huge explosion or black hole or anything immediately life threatening wouldn't you run too?
      • anagoge, on 09/12/2008, -0/+1You know, this man has a point. ***** it, giving myself a headstart and just running now and then if the world does end, I'll have ran more than all of you. Suckers.
    • phpftw, on 09/11/2008, -4/+1I swear that this link gets posted atleast 10 times on each LHC post!
    • thetanman, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2http://cdsweb.cern.ch/search?cc=Photos&p=LHC&f=&c= ...
    • Thorpe, on 09/12/2008, -0/+1I totally thought I just tuned in during a test. Then, I realized...
  • pitdog, on 09/11/2008, -5/+6Science is so cool!

    If societies invested more in science, instead of wars, we would be years and years ahead now...
    BTW CERN scientists were afraid of the BSOD so they must be using linux or unix ;)
    • BXRWXR2, on 09/11/2008, -3/+1But the Black Hole of Death is OK.
      • ErrorLoading, on 09/11/2008, -2/+4I agree and disagree. World War 2 was actually a huge advancement in science. We tend to move a little faster when we are forced to.

        I do agree though, that if humans weren't so dumb and worked as hard as they do without the opportunity to blow another group up with the results, we'd all be happier. But unfortunately, most of humanity does not work that way.
  • ceredron, on 09/11/2008, -3/+11ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWA
  • ethon, on 09/11/2008, -0/+5Oh, well, everything looks to be in order here.
  • sinistersalt, on 09/11/2008, -1/+0Well, that makes me feel A LOT better about the end of the world.
    • simpleid, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2this is the only joke which never stops that actually bothers me. weird.
  • sircomix, on 09/11/2008, -0/+4This means nothing to me. Enjoy, sciencey types!
  • KragTheDigger, on 09/11/2008, -1/+7Why is there a 16-bit videogame character in the lower-left picture (to the right of the red 'walls', X=10, Y=7) ? Is it Luigi ?
    • noumuon, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2more like 8-bit ... look like wario luigi guy...
  • Roundbadge, on 09/11/2008, -0/+24So .. ehrm .. what are we looking at here?
    • OhTheHumanity1, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3I know right?! Let's see, you know, you've got yer standard uh.... which clearly indicates... and we need to keep an eye on the.... yeah doesn't make any sense at all
    • drgmdp, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1just switches, lights, and knobs
    • Ki77erB, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Whatever you do, just don't touch the red bu....*****.

      *black hole opens and turns earth into a spaghetti strand of matter*
    • BR5490U812, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1top 3 are the various layers of the detector. each layer detects different particles. they are wrapped up kinda like the layers of an onion because the more velocity the particle has the deeper it embeds into the detector. some particles can go all the way through and they detect these by calculating the energy not accounted for by the detector. i hope that clears up the first 3. as for the bottom 2... i am not familiar with these but i can ask some of my friends in the physics department and get back to you next week if you want. if you google ATLAS you might be able to find a more detailed explanation.
  • ViperCTW, on 09/11/2008, -0/+8Awesome! Now I can pretend that I know what I'm looking at.
  • Br3ach, on 09/11/2008, -8/+10Was this designed with MS Paint?
  • lonelycoo, on 09/11/2008, -6/+2New wallpaper..
  • aoki4, on 09/11/2008, -7/+1This is a fan mock-up, not the actual controls. Why would they leak something of this magnitude to the public when it could produce black holes? Use your brains ppl.
    • drakenlot, on 09/11/2008, -0/+4It's an image moron.

      They've shown images of the internal workings of the LHC, those would be far more dangerous to show than a screenshot of the data output.

      It doesn't even show the controls themselves.
    • moxley, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3It's always really funny when someone is like "use you brains ppl" and the ***** they are posting is more wrong than the posts they're criticizing.
    • shortyjacobs, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Yeah, besides the fact that you need zillions of dollars to build one, and the best minds in the world working for you, ANY old retard could make the LHC using this picture alone, then use it to destroy the world!!

      Go back to your cage, Brain.
    • djholybolt, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1You Fail
    • TraumaPony, on 09/12/2008, -0/+1Oh man... Dugg for 'use you brains ppl'.
  • kiiwii, on 09/11/2008, -3/+3It looks like they've already found the existence of some sort of bird/moth man.

    (Lower left picture, top right of the middle rectangle)

    http://tvmedia.ign.com/tv/image/article/780/780474 ...
    • drakenlot, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1It's a scientist who got caught in the LHC as it turned on, and he was transported into the computer to meet the MCP and stop it from creating a black hole.
  • moxley, on 09/11/2008, -0/+7Well, on those round ones what you gotta do is bounce that thing against the blocks (don't touch them or you'll de-res) as they move across while you move towards them; knock them all out and we're all good.

    On the one in the lower right watch for spiders! (if you see any and they are doing this weird cartwheel *****, watch out cause that means they're multiplying; try to shoot em before that happens - if you can get past them and into that beam it will take you up out of there. You should spin your arms while you're going up cause it looks cool).
    • moxley, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2I don't see the tanks or lightcycles yet, but I assure you, they're there.
  • scabbers, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1sustaining sequence
  • elscorcho717, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3Remember, it doesn't have to be pretty... it just has to display the data accurately and relevantly... if it can do that with 8-bit graphics, why bog it down with anything "prettier" just for the aesthetic feel?

    EDIT: And the way I see it, the top 3 circles aren't supposed to be a top-down view of the LHC. They are visualizations of the beam, so they are seen from "inside" the pipe. This way they can align two protons or more and collide them.
    • justacec, on 09/12/2008, -0/+1A detector is made up like an onion, much like what was said earlier, there are several different types of detectors enveloping the detector below it. While each of the top three are showing the same thing pretty much the one on the far left is zoomed to show the Muon detectors. This is the furthest detector from the center. The middle image is showing the energy deposited in the calorimeter. I am guessing (I am not on this experiment) that the calorimeter has several different layers and that is where the little sploches of green are coming from. The far right image is showing the tracking system. In the far left image the green lines represent particle tracks that were found representing the particle trajectories, which is also what is going on in the far right image (since both the muon chambers and the central tracking detectors are both tracking detectors). The lower left image is a view of the detector cut in half. Here you can see the Muon chambers which are blue and surround the detector. In this image you can also see calorimeter which is represented by the orangish/redish boxes and then the central tracking detector inside of the calorimeter. In the lower right you see what is called a Lego plot which represents the energy deposited in the different cells of the calorimeter. Imagine if you took a pringles can and cut one side of it so that you could roll it out. Then draw little squares (representing the calorimeter cells) and then roll it back up. So you see it is just an unrolling of the calorimeter.

      This is a very nasty and not well defined event (well especially since it was not even and "event" since there are no collisions). This is just a spray of particles coming from the beam line.
  • ZaNkY, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3Is it just me.... or do those circle things remind me of some test chamber from some game....


    What is that that you say? A resonance what?
  • naslai, on 09/11/2008, -1/+4so what does that mean?
    did the black hole ***** go down?
    • waydee, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Yes the black hole ***** went down but for reasons unknown everything was returned to normal in exact duplicate, did you miss it?
  • axptxp, on 09/11/2008, -3/+0i think all those little dots form up to make a connect-the-dots puzzle...if i did it right, its a picture of a black hole with the message "put your head between your legs and kiss your @$$ goodbye."
    • Andyschism, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Black holes, like ninjas, strike without warning. Their jokes are better as well.
  • Sommerlost, on 09/11/2008, -3/+1ohhh someone's been busy in MS Paint.
  • gobbstopp, on 09/11/2008, -1/+1simple.. rotate the purple thing to negative 56 cm, press the jesus fish with the eyeball, reference the roulette table, and watch your 'items in list' rise exponentially and - blammo! you got yourself a mini-bang complete with dark matter.
    pffft. ya'll are amateurs...
    • drakenlot, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1I guess the red button in the centre of every image is the big ON button?

      or is that the 'EASY' button to generate a black hole?
  • ErrorLoading, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1I'm pretty sure this thing hasn't even started colliding particles yet. I'm pretty sure they are just aligning the lasers, which I assume this thing is showing where they are getting hits so they can center it.

    All this crap about the world not ending isn't even relevant yet.

    Or, I also have no idea what I'm talking about.
    • drakenlot, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1You're right, they aren't planning on colliding anything until October, so we all have a month left.
  • Onibus, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2Look at those pie charts and bar graphs. They're off the chart!
    • drakenlot, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1I'd say something witty, but that 'over 9000 thousand' meme is anything but.
  • vivalanation734, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3KDE FTW.
  • crillox, on 09/11/2008, -5/+0why are they using paint?
  • noctu, on 09/11/2008, -0/+10looks like a DOOM map with cheats enabled.
  • morninglorii, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1They should definitely update to a Web 2.0 version, with rounded corners and pastels and AJAX. It would really help the synergy of the paradigm.
  • TimmyA, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1I think what you're seeing here is the result of a proton beam collision with one of the collimators.
  • sk11, on 09/11/2008, -0/+4More images + videos:

    http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/OPERATIONS/p ...
  • brundlefly76, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2why do people still use imageshack when we have flickr, etc?
  • Joomal, on 09/11/2008, -2/+1i'm not alone when i say 'cool'.
  • andretii, on 09/11/2008, -2/+5ok now show me it running Crysis
    • Cimlite, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2Still stutters, but medium settings is OK. Huge success.
  • diggtochina, on 09/11/2008, -1/+78 billion dollars and 1978 graphics
    • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -1/+5Dollars? don't you mean Euros - not much American about this baby!
      • spezi, on 09/11/2008, -2/+0While CERN is the European Center for Nuclear Research, the LHC is a global project.

        See eg http://www.bnl.gov/today/story.asp?ITEM_NO=756

        "Throughout the country, more than 1,200 American physicists, engineers, students, and technicians from 90 institutions contributed to the LHC. The U.S. effort - a $531 million investment - was funded by the Office of High Energy Physics in DOE's Office of Science and the National Science Foundation."

        I think CERN usually uses Swiss Francs for official numbers concerning money, which is kind of ... neutral. :)
      • justjoehere, on 09/11/2008, -2/+3Of the $8billion Euro's, America contributed $531million (pre-recession dollars) and several teams of scientists.
      • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -2/+1yep... like I said - out of the 8 Billion euros, the USA contributed a mere 500 million.. well.. mustn't complain... I suppose it came in handy for lunch money!
      • skeez86, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0Thanks for supporting the stuck up European stereotype. America's government put more money into this than they do research in their own country.

        Doesn't say much for them though.
      • diggtochina, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Sorry, what was i thinking? I should have said the 8 billion dollars if it had been paid for with dollars.
      • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2don't you think it's a little strange though? honesty? just read the article linked above by spezi

        http://www.bnl.gov/today/story.asp?ITEM_NO=756

        They even call it the 'US LHC' and there is absolutely no mention of any other country's involvement in the project. Now THAT is a stereotypical American attitude that hasn't changed since Edison 'invented' the light bulb... about 5 years after Joseph Swan.
      • spezi, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1@wibblewobble:

        They don't call it the "US LHC" they say "the U.S. Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collaborations celebrated..." (and talk about the US LHC construction project). The article mentions the fact that the LHC collaborations from the US celebrated a milestone related to their part of the project, namely that they have achieved the completion of all the parts they committed to build for LHC. This is why the article is all about the US part of the contribution.

        Just for the record: I'm European, and it's nice that LHC (which is an amazing project) is based in Europe. I'm also a particle physicist, though not involved in LHC. I think it's great that the US committed to fund an experiment in Europe with more than half a Billion Dollar. It shows the true international spirit of my field. I don't know the details of how the funding of LHC and the experiments is split up, but I guess you would find that the US is one of the major individual contributing countries to the project. Sure some European countries provided more, and per capita even more so. But it stands that the US provided a lot of money, expertise and talented people to the project and "not much American about this baby" is surely a wrong statement. The article mentions ATLAS, one of the major experiments at LHC. It says that of the 2200 people 600 are American physicists, engineers and grad students. Not much American, you say? It's more than a quarter for this collaboration!

        Sorry, but as being somewhat from the field I really like the sense of international community here, and an European-American pissing contest is really misplaced here.
      • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0ok, please accept my apologies and I agree - there isn't any need for a pissing contest, it is an international effort and also, It's an awesome project, I'm grateful that it has been built and that it has reached this milestone. It can only be a good thing and I'm looking forward to hearing about the discoveries made with it over the next few years.

        on a side note... don't you think the display here looks like the engravings on the hellraiser cube!

        http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/hellraiser_puzzl ...
      • spezi, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0Accepted. :)

        Hmm, maybe a bit, but I would not have made this connection by myself... :)
    • tHeSiD, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1well thats kde for you
  • youliveinfear, on 09/11/2008, -0/+1Global Thermonuclear War
  • spezi, on 09/11/2008, -0/+3IMHO pretty good explanation of this image at Slashdot:

    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=959595 ...
  • ChrisArchitect, on 09/11/2008, -1/+1this is real? pretty c00l
  • falser, on 09/11/2008, -2/+3They spent 8 billion euros to build a 17 mile diameter hadron collider to make MS Paint pictures?
  • gnaegy, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0Star Castle LHC, most expensive update ever. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Castle
  • n8o8, on 09/11/2008, -0/+2I have no idea what I'm looking at, but I feel smarter!
  • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -0/+0You worry about the big bang... what about this - something NOBODY considered... check those screenshots against the engravings of the lament configuration!!!

    http://www.starstore.com/acatalog/hellraiser_puzzl ...
  • wibblewobble, on 09/11/2008, -1/+0haha! good point actually - how will creationism fit in with the findings of the LHC experiments!! another 'test of faith' no doubt!
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