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magpiesmn
How close are they to blowing errrr I mean imploding the world up/down?
Answer
Good question!
On 26 April, the last superconducting magnet for the LHC was lowered into the accelerator tunnel.
According to an article which recently appeared concerning this event, it was noted that not many of the guests at the ceremony on 26 April would have been well-versed in the subtleties of the Welsh language, but they all intuitively understood the inscription on the banner draped across the top of the PM12 shaft. Since 7 March 2005, this well-known banner has borne the inscription 'Magned cyntaf yr LHC' (first magnet for the LHC), in honour of the LHC's (Welsh) Project Leader, Lyn Evans; now the inscription has been changed to 'Magned olaf yr LHC' (last magnet for the LHC). And so, on Thursday 26 April 2007, the last magnet, a 15-metre-long, 34-tonne superconducting dipole bearing the number 2401, was lowered into the LHC tunnel to the applause of the hundreds of guests attending this final lowering ceremony. The PM12 shaft was sunk for the express purpose of lowering these colossal superconductors into the tunnel and has seen 1232 dipoles pass its threshold over the last two years, 1746 magnets in total.
AT Department's Vacuum Group Leader Pierre Strubin, TS Department's Installation Coordination Group Leader Claude Hauviller, LHC Project Leader Lyn Evans, and CERN Director-General Robert Aymar, each took their turn at the microphone, underlining the vast quantities of components assembled, transported and installed over the past months. Before commencing their journey underground, the magnets were fitted with beam screens and underwent final tests and welds in the SM12 hall, which tops the PM12 shaft. '45 kilometres of beam screens and 65,000 components were processed in this building,' Pierre Strubin said. 'It was a real hive of activity, with 40 people going about their business from 7 in the morning until 8 in the evening.'
The lowering operation was a massive challenge also due to the quantity, size and fragility of the items to be transported, not to mention the very tight deadlines. 'The teams worked 24/7, installing up to 35 magnets per week, a feat which everybody, including me, considered impossible,' said Claude Hauviller. It took nearly 10,000 truck journeys to transport the magnets from the various locations where they were stored in France and Switzerland. Hauviller adds: 'some 40,000 km were travelled in total, roughly the circumference of the Earth - at 10 kilometres per hour!' Once underground, another 30,000 kilometres were travelled, at just 2 kph. All the speakers paid tribute to the commitment of the teams and the assistance provided by the local authorities in what was a truly Herculean task.
Magnet No. 2401 was duly slotted into its final position in the UJ22 cavern, where the TI2 transfer tunnel links up with the LHC.
A word from the DG: A new model for sharing knowledge
As we all know, a fundamental aim in scientific research is to publish the results with as wide a dissemination as possible. Researchers have access to the literature through libraries, but what happens when subscription fees for scientific journals increase year after year, way beyond inflation? Today we have reached a situation where groups of LHC physicists publish in journals they are unable to read from their home institutes. And, as you might have noticed, even the CERN Library struggles to maintain a coherent collection. This is of course not only in contradiction with the purpose of science; it also has important implications for issues such as education and technology transfer.
The European Commission has been aware of the problem for some time and is encouraging the various stakeholders in scientific publishing to experiment with new models for publication that may improve both access to and dissemination of scientific information. In this context, CERN has been a catalyst over the past two years among representatives of European funding agencies, librarians, laboratories and particle physics publishers in defining a new business model for scientific publishing which will offer free access for anyone to peer-reviewed articles via the Web. This model, currently collecting significant support, was presented at a meeting in Brussels to 500 delegates, representing researchers across all sciences, research administrators and publishers, and more recently last week to a meeting of representatives of particle physics funding agencies organised here at CERN.
This vision clearly goes beyond CERN. Reforming the publishing system requires the whole community at world level, in one discipline, to unite behind a new model. There are also reasons to believe that the vision might spread to other fields of physics and even into other disciplines. The strong Open Access statement that has been endorsed over recent weeks by the collaboration boards of ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and TOTEM is of great importance. It demonstrates the commitment of the entire LHC community and we see that it is already influencing the publishing industry.
By proposing a new model for publishing we are challenging a 350 year old tradition, but as in many other domains, LHC physics requires new thinking. With this background and in the spirit of sharing knowledge, as in the development of the Web and now for the Grid, I strongly support the move towards a new publishing paradigm. Scientific publishing is changing and it is natural to me that LHC physics results should be published in a way that is accessible to everyone.
Good question!
On 26 April, the last superconducting magnet for the LHC was lowered into the accelerator tunnel.
According to an article which recently appeared concerning this event, it was noted that not many of the guests at the ceremony on 26 April would have been well-versed in the subtleties of the Welsh language, but they all intuitively understood the inscription on the banner draped across the top of the PM12 shaft. Since 7 March 2005, this well-known banner has borne the inscription 'Magned cyntaf yr LHC' (first magnet for the LHC), in honour of the LHC's (Welsh) Project Leader, Lyn Evans; now the inscription has been changed to 'Magned olaf yr LHC' (last magnet for the LHC). And so, on Thursday 26 April 2007, the last magnet, a 15-metre-long, 34-tonne superconducting dipole bearing the number 2401, was lowered into the LHC tunnel to the applause of the hundreds of guests attending this final lowering ceremony. The PM12 shaft was sunk for the express purpose of lowering these colossal superconductors into the tunnel and has seen 1232 dipoles pass its threshold over the last two years, 1746 magnets in total.
AT Department's Vacuum Group Leader Pierre Strubin, TS Department's Installation Coordination Group Leader Claude Hauviller, LHC Project Leader Lyn Evans, and CERN Director-General Robert Aymar, each took their turn at the microphone, underlining the vast quantities of components assembled, transported and installed over the past months. Before commencing their journey underground, the magnets were fitted with beam screens and underwent final tests and welds in the SM12 hall, which tops the PM12 shaft. '45 kilometres of beam screens and 65,000 components were processed in this building,' Pierre Strubin said. 'It was a real hive of activity, with 40 people going about their business from 7 in the morning until 8 in the evening.'
The lowering operation was a massive challenge also due to the quantity, size and fragility of the items to be transported, not to mention the very tight deadlines. 'The teams worked 24/7, installing up to 35 magnets per week, a feat which everybody, including me, considered impossible,' said Claude Hauviller. It took nearly 10,000 truck journeys to transport the magnets from the various locations where they were stored in France and Switzerland. Hauviller adds: 'some 40,000 km were travelled in total, roughly the circumference of the Earth - at 10 kilometres per hour!' Once underground, another 30,000 kilometres were travelled, at just 2 kph. All the speakers paid tribute to the commitment of the teams and the assistance provided by the local authorities in what was a truly Herculean task.
Magnet No. 2401 was duly slotted into its final position in the UJ22 cavern, where the TI2 transfer tunnel links up with the LHC.
A word from the DG: A new model for sharing knowledge
As we all know, a fundamental aim in scientific research is to publish the results with as wide a dissemination as possible. Researchers have access to the literature through libraries, but what happens when subscription fees for scientific journals increase year after year, way beyond inflation? Today we have reached a situation where groups of LHC physicists publish in journals they are unable to read from their home institutes. And, as you might have noticed, even the CERN Library struggles to maintain a coherent collection. This is of course not only in contradiction with the purpose of science; it also has important implications for issues such as education and technology transfer.
The European Commission has been aware of the problem for some time and is encouraging the various stakeholders in scientific publishing to experiment with new models for publication that may improve both access to and dissemination of scientific information. In this context, CERN has been a catalyst over the past two years among representatives of European funding agencies, librarians, laboratories and particle physics publishers in defining a new business model for scientific publishing which will offer free access for anyone to peer-reviewed articles via the Web. This model, currently collecting significant support, was presented at a meeting in Brussels to 500 delegates, representing researchers across all sciences, research administrators and publishers, and more recently last week to a meeting of representatives of particle physics funding agencies organised here at CERN.
This vision clearly goes beyond CERN. Reforming the publishing system requires the whole community at world level, in one discipline, to unite behind a new model. There are also reasons to believe that the vision might spread to other fields of physics and even into other disciplines. The strong Open Access statement that has been endorsed over recent weeks by the collaboration boards of ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and TOTEM is of great importance. It demonstrates the commitment of the entire LHC community and we see that it is already influencing the publishing industry.
By proposing a new model for publishing we are challenging a 350 year old tradition, but as in many other domains, LHC physics requires new thinking. With this background and in the spirit of sharing knowledge, as in the development of the Web and now for the Grid, I strongly support the move towards a new publishing paradigm. Scientific publishing is changing and it is natural to me that LHC physics results should be published in a way that is accessible to everyone.
Me and my husband would like to get invloved in investing, Where do we begin?
star_princ
I have read a few articles, and I kind of remember back in high school in finance about the stock market but that was 6 years ago. How much should a novice start with? Please help
Answer
Star,
Start only with the money that, if you lost it all, would not change your lives or fill you with remorse. I'd suggest 5,000 if you are a regular middle class family. That's enough to take seriously but not enough to matter alot if you lost it. If you don't have 5k to lose, you probably should not be investing in stocks.
Read several books. I suggest "Beating the Street" by Peter Lynch. It's written for new investors. There's an outfit represented by something called "The Motley Fool" that's got several good books too. Bottom line - the time spent reading 4 or 5 good books on investing is money well spent. In fact, you could consider it as work - since the information you gain will be making you money later. Please don't skip this step.
Please follow these guidelines:
1. Don't use a full service broker. These are brokers that try to choose stocks for you. They make money when you buy and sell. The more you trade, the more they make. This is not beneficial to you, therefore, they have conflicting priorities to yours from the very start. They also charge significantly more. With 5,000 bucks, full service commissions would eat it up faster than profits. It's just not necessary. Go with someone like E-Trade. They're a legitimate discount broker and have been in business for many years. They aren't going anywhere.
2. Don't buy stocks you don't know anything about because your neighbors boss knows somebody with a hot tip. This is pure gambling and because hot tips usually also qualify for illegal insider trading, they are usually not true. Also, by the time a tip reaches anyone out of the boardroom, the stock price will have already reacted.
3. Do buy the stock of companies whose products you are familiar with after finding out if they are financially sound and growing. Watch your grocery buying. What new product is really cool? What new store is going up in your area? Sometimes these stocks can be very overpriced. Sometimes, you'll be the person that spotted a wal-mart all over northern Arkansas or Missouri in 1972. I have a friend whose mother was a home depot clerk in the early years. She bought stock out of her almost minimum wage job and retired a millionaire after 10 or so years of dramatic growth. Will this happen to you? Probably not. But it's nice to know that it can.
4. Watch a stock for a few months before buying any of it. Read all the news you can find on it. Yahoo! financials is a good place to start.
5. Don't place too much stock (ha ha) in the so called 'recommendations' of so called experts. Trust your instincts.
6. Never let the fear of paying taxes prevent you from selling a losing stock.
7. Remember: If you find something that stays fairly stable and doubles in 3 or 4 years, you've done very well. If you do this with your 5k, then, if you do it 9 more times, you will be a millionair. 5k x 2 = 10k. 10k x 2 = 20k. 20k x 2 = 40k. 40k x 2 = 80k. 80x2 =160. 160x2 = 320. 320x2 = 640. 640x2 = 1.28 mil. You'll always have capital gains taxes, but it's close to working out to a mil. The problem is, you'll want to spread yourself around some when you start making more money.
I strongly recommend that you join or start an investment club of like-minded individuals. Find people who are conservative and rational. You can share ideas and research. You can bounce your ideas off of each other and make sure your moves are not overly motivated by emotional reactions. Trying to invest in the space of your own mind, knowing that many experts can't be trusted, knowing that full service brokers can't be trusted, and knowing that some of the market is manipulated can be stressful and lonely. You need a support group.
Star,
Start only with the money that, if you lost it all, would not change your lives or fill you with remorse. I'd suggest 5,000 if you are a regular middle class family. That's enough to take seriously but not enough to matter alot if you lost it. If you don't have 5k to lose, you probably should not be investing in stocks.
Read several books. I suggest "Beating the Street" by Peter Lynch. It's written for new investors. There's an outfit represented by something called "The Motley Fool" that's got several good books too. Bottom line - the time spent reading 4 or 5 good books on investing is money well spent. In fact, you could consider it as work - since the information you gain will be making you money later. Please don't skip this step.
Please follow these guidelines:
1. Don't use a full service broker. These are brokers that try to choose stocks for you. They make money when you buy and sell. The more you trade, the more they make. This is not beneficial to you, therefore, they have conflicting priorities to yours from the very start. They also charge significantly more. With 5,000 bucks, full service commissions would eat it up faster than profits. It's just not necessary. Go with someone like E-Trade. They're a legitimate discount broker and have been in business for many years. They aren't going anywhere.
2. Don't buy stocks you don't know anything about because your neighbors boss knows somebody with a hot tip. This is pure gambling and because hot tips usually also qualify for illegal insider trading, they are usually not true. Also, by the time a tip reaches anyone out of the boardroom, the stock price will have already reacted.
3. Do buy the stock of companies whose products you are familiar with after finding out if they are financially sound and growing. Watch your grocery buying. What new product is really cool? What new store is going up in your area? Sometimes these stocks can be very overpriced. Sometimes, you'll be the person that spotted a wal-mart all over northern Arkansas or Missouri in 1972. I have a friend whose mother was a home depot clerk in the early years. She bought stock out of her almost minimum wage job and retired a millionaire after 10 or so years of dramatic growth. Will this happen to you? Probably not. But it's nice to know that it can.
4. Watch a stock for a few months before buying any of it. Read all the news you can find on it. Yahoo! financials is a good place to start.
5. Don't place too much stock (ha ha) in the so called 'recommendations' of so called experts. Trust your instincts.
6. Never let the fear of paying taxes prevent you from selling a losing stock.
7. Remember: If you find something that stays fairly stable and doubles in 3 or 4 years, you've done very well. If you do this with your 5k, then, if you do it 9 more times, you will be a millionair. 5k x 2 = 10k. 10k x 2 = 20k. 20k x 2 = 40k. 40k x 2 = 80k. 80x2 =160. 160x2 = 320. 320x2 = 640. 640x2 = 1.28 mil. You'll always have capital gains taxes, but it's close to working out to a mil. The problem is, you'll want to spread yourself around some when you start making more money.
I strongly recommend that you join or start an investment club of like-minded individuals. Find people who are conservative and rational. You can share ideas and research. You can bounce your ideas off of each other and make sure your moves are not overly motivated by emotional reactions. Trying to invest in the space of your own mind, knowing that many experts can't be trusted, knowing that full service brokers can't be trusted, and knowing that some of the market is manipulated can be stressful and lonely. You need a support group.
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