Richmond (VA) - There's an article on NewScientist.com that might seem astounding. It basically states that laser-based, desktop-sized "atom smashers" could be as effective or more at probing the secrets of the universe as the $9 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland, but for a tiny fraction of the cost.


The LHC is a 27 kilometer underground tunnel comprised of over $2 billion worth of equipment (some of which took 20 years of development to produce) to accelerate particles from 450 GeV to 7000 GeV. It is currently broken and will not be up and running until this coming Spring at the earliest. Moving from 450 GeV to 7000 GeV equates to a journey 17 million times around the circle (450 million kilometers) before finally reaching impact speeds.

This large size was due to the limits of the accelerating vehicle, in this case enormously powerful magnets. The idea has come to scientists, however, that it doesn't have to be big to be powerful or fast.

There's a fully technical explanation in the article, but basically the method would used plasma. In plasma, positively charged ions exist separately from negatively charged electrons (due to the extreme heat).

The team proposes shooting a high intensity laser across the plasma, which in turn pushes the electrons away. As they go away they create an "electron void" in the ion portion of the plasma which then begins to attract the electrons again once the laser is switch off. However, because they will accelerate at extreme speeds toward the ions, they will overshoot their mark creating another void.

The result is a successive series of wave-like patterns with varying electron densities. The electrons at "just the right point" will gain extreme velocity and momentum, creating a potential for desirable atom smashing effects.

This process takes place in a relatively small area, with only variations in the laser's intensity, duration and shape being required. The end result is a micro-laboratory where velocities equal to or greater than those achievable at the LHC could be created. And, for a tiny fraction of the cost.


Author's opinion

Here we see yet another example of why it's worth waiting a while (even a couple decades) before deciding on some policy that will end up costing billions. This is especially true with the rate at which science is  advancing today.

Science will ultimately show us more cost effective ways to solve problems like these, as well as energy problems, greenhouse gas and global warming problems, and pretty much everything that is thrown at it, if given time to grow and room to breathe.

@authors opinion

Jan 06, 2009 16:32     

about the authors opinion, no offense intended but hindsight is always 20/20, and are we even sure this new method will reproduce the conditions and results for ALL the experiments one can run in something like the LHC? And if we could really do it in small desktop smashers, couldn't we magnify the desktop environment many times over using a similar plasma setup in the LHC at much greater efficiency? Cheers for them if this can become a viable alternative to large colliders.

Ronald Stepp report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +19

Cheaper, yes

Jan 06, 2009 16:53     

But, if you read page 3 you'll note that the same physicists think they might be able to scale their approach to 500 GeV by 2025. LHC is here now, modulo some repairs, at 14 times the energy. [I would suggest something radical. Suppose $2 billion of the $9 billion was spent on developing this technology. Do you think by 2015 we could have something commensurate? I sure do, and a $7 billion savings. -Rick]

Dan report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Don't wait.

Jan 06, 2009 17:01     

If every scientist waited for every other scientist to make his job easier we wouldn't get anywhere.
maddogblum report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +46

Was Bernie Madoff behind this? And the Swiss....Hmm...

Jan 06, 2009 17:04     

Was Bernie Madoff behind this? And the Swiss....Hmmm. Neutral huh? They're probably the ones who will destroy the world LOL. In all seriousness though. If this is a viable alternative to the LHC, then the LHC is a complete waste of money that could have gone to a better means of use.
Mike_M report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -12

New Scientist is not credible

Jan 06, 2009 17:15     

Take anything reported by the New Scientist with a grain of salt. They tend to be sensationlistic and have questionable science. Their cover story on the EmDrive is only one example. Google "wikipedia emdrive" and make your own decision.
Albert report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +7

What?!

Jan 06, 2009 17:42     

The nature of technology is to get cheaper, but only if you go through the initial slower stages. Cell phones are much better than telegraphs, but if they had never made telegraphs cell phones wouldn't exist.
Rob Cozzens report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +16

Me and my SETI screensaver

Jan 06, 2009 17:52     

rofl So I can take a laser pointer and rig it to my plasma tv and discover the secrets of the universe while I'm skipping commercials. With that and my SETI screensaver, I can save the world ;)
Dave report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +7

RE: author's opinion

Jan 06, 2009 18:52     

Applying your thought process where would electronics be today if the UNIVAC was never built and improved upon. Or if the UNIVAC team was waiting for extreme ultraviolet lithography to be refined to be workable and cost effective, without realizing the EUVL team was waiting for a decent computer to use. I guess we can all sit back and let someone else do the work... :) [According to the article, this form of plasma wave technique was first theorized in 1979, a point nearly 10 years before work on the LHC began. I can only imagine how far these scientists could've gone with only $2 billion of the ultimate $9 billion budget. But it's true, hindsight is 20/20. -Rick]

Malkav report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +12

No one likes to be the first sucker.....

Jan 06, 2009 19:23     

.... but there has to be someone who buys the first SSD, or the first BlueRay, or the first OLED. They cost too much and are obsolete real fast. Imagine the poor suckers MAKING the first (file in blank) This wasn't the first collider, but the idea was, take what the other(s)? were able to do and make it bigger, and grander, and maybe be able to learn something more while producing grander results. If there is a theory out there about how to make a desktop one, great. But for the time being, theories and words and $1 won't get you a cup of coffee most places in the world. Don't slam someone for building something that doesn't turn out to be the next best thing since sliced bread. They are trying. No one was planning on having space probes to Mars crash and be destroyed. And no one planned on other probes making it to Mars and working for YEARS beyond their designed lifespan. With cutting edge science, you spins the wheel, and you takes you chances. Some times you get screwed. Some times you discover the greatest things through accidents. Pointing the finger and complaining is easy. Going out and doing something half as amazing as some of the things we complain about......impossible for most.

CHAPOOT[aTm] report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +14

Before getting carried away with the ifs buts and maybes

Jan 06, 2009 19:54     

Before someone makes these kinds of big claims & theorises that the other people have wasted huge amounts of time & money and are effectively obsolete before they begin I'd like a little more proof and evidence than a splash story in New Scientist. I'm not saying they are completely wrong of course but NS are a little too tabloid for my liking and nobody has proved a thing wrong or outdated with the LHC so far. There are some big claims in that article, if they're right then great, we won't be needing to spend the same amounts on this kind of pure research in future. But let's see if they are completely correct first before writing off other people's years of hard graft and effort.

DaveBG report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +4

Other costs for LHC

Jan 06, 2009 19:56     

Remember that there is more to the LHC than smashing particles. It also needs uber expensive detectors and super computers to process the results of the collisions. As far as I know all that suff would still be needed even if you have a different mechanism for smahing particles.
Murphy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +10

Its nice:

Jan 06, 2009 21:34     

If the original theory was proposed in 1979 then why didn't scientists run with it then. There was probably something holding them back. Now whatever was holding them back is theoretically possible ... in 15 years. The LHC is possible now. Nuff said. I understand your argument about $2billion invested then may have saved us now, but I am pretty sure they have been working on the alternative method on and off since it was proposed. It just took them till 2008 to actually have the technological infrastructure for the method to be successful.

Luke report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Where ARE they?

Jan 06, 2009 22:14     

I check PhysOrg.com every couple days and am amazed at some of the "new breakthroughs" that are routinely reported. And yet, we never seem to actually GET these wonderful new technologies even years later. Where do they KEEP GOING? On the newest Security Now! podcast from TWIT I just learned about a patent for a new kind of battery (Ultracaps) which is supposed to be able to store 3 times the energy for the same weight, and recharge in 5 seconds. The patent was granted on the 16th December 2008. I wonder if we'll actually see any new batteries like that within the next 10 years? Isn't technology great? Cheers!

Ronald Stepp report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

author's comment

Jan 06, 2009 23:41     

Rick, I did a quick search via Google to see if I could find out your background before I made any comment. I checked several links but didn't come across anything quickly. So let me just say your comment couldn't be more misleading for those who don't understand the processes of research and experimentation. When it comes to funding an 'idea', someone has to make a best guess. Many, many ideas never pan out regardless of how much money is thrown at them. (timely or not) The more we learn, the more we begin to see how much we don't yet know. This alternate process may be decades away from implementation itself. Unknowns may crop up at numerous points in development and stall the implementation until a solution is found in the next decade.

T.S. report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +6

Please consult scientists before posting such misinformation

Jan 06, 2009 23:51     

Authors opinion: sorry, but you are severely lacking physical knowledge to have an opinion. Maybe it is possible to get to energies like 10TeV with such a device but it doesn't make a substitute device. You need extremely large fluxes to produce some particles with significant probability. [Kirk once told Scotty that someday there would be ships much larger than the Enterprise with engines the size of walnuts. He didn't believe it either. :) I quote Donald Rumsfeldt: "There are known knows, things we know we know. There are known unknowns, things we know we don't know. And there are unknown unknowns, things we don't know we don't know." Seems applicable. :) -Rick] There is no purpose in experiment that would yield Higgs boson every 50 quadrillion years. Not to say that there is probably no theoretical way of geting one with such device. Also, why don't you ask some physicist from that field of research for an alternative opinion before giving people such misinformation? If everything was founded in a way that CERN was we wouldn't have any problems. Scientists need to spend much more energy than anyone for proving the purpose of founding. So please don't make such stupid observations. Also it is important to know that there are a lot of indirect consequences of such enormous projects. For example internet was one of them (you wouldn't have internet today if they decided to wait for a hundred of years before making first accelerators). New way of storing such enormous amount of data and sending it all over the world, new materials, new technologies and the last and most important - new scientific discoveries. Yes, that is the most important part. There is a great correlation between GDP of countries and investments in science. While it's totally normal to go to war and invest trillions of dollars in such action when scientists spend 9 billion $ on a device that will make greatest discoveries in history of man kind, it's too much. Once again, please do not insult scientists with such articles. You need to inform your self first, or at least, don't have an opinion before informing your self.

Ed report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +11

Reasons to use old tech?

Jan 07, 2009 01:12     

I'm still waiting my personal cold fusion power plant. All new ideas don't prove to be practical, or functional. So lets see the results first, and then judge, OK? LHC at least worked (better than estimated before tuning etc ?) before it broke.
Raven report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

BS

Jan 07, 2009 01:36     

Smashing particles is just one side of the coin. The sensors that can detect the resulting particles are a whole other ball game. Are the new scientist people stating that you can reproduce the atlas module of the LHC on a desk? Madness... It's just not possible. Stop the sensationalism. Stick to the facts.
The Trutherizer report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +4

What's this thing good for anyways?

Jan 07, 2009 01:55     

Excuse my ignorance, but when this machine is running again in the Spring and they discover the "secrets to the universe", is there any tangible benefit? I can't help but think that all the immense resources that went into this would have been better off spent on something more important like renewable energy.
Mat3 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -5

If I understood correctly, this new method acceller...

Jan 07, 2009 02:21     

If I understood correctly, this new method accellerates electrons, the LHC, on the other hand, accellerates protons.......quite a difference!
PC report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

laser acceleration

Jan 07, 2009 03:22     

Laser acceleration is nothing new. New is the availability of ultra short time high power lasers. National security kept high power laser development under tight wraps since the 70s. Placing this in a "desktop device" is silly. Ultra high speed electrons are a distinct radiation hazard.
Joerg Zahn report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Not concerned of LHC

Jan 07, 2009 05:57     

LHC will definately give us new science but ITER is a complete waste and it sucks all the money out of alternative fusion research. Tokamaks ain't ever going to work as power stations. They're too big, complex, expensive and will not just work in a continuous fashion. They've been studing it 50 years already. It's simply a game scientists like to play and get paid.
Nut report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

kills his cred with GW BS

Jan 07, 2009 07:03     

The fact that this bozo thinks Gore-bull warming is actualy a scientific issue blows his creds. [Read it again - and carefully. -Rick]
Rivenburg report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -5

Better use of a few billion

Jan 07, 2009 07:36     

A common response to this "theoretical" cheap collider or even the public's response to the project's price tag is ..... what a waste of money. They should have used all that money on ..... This wasn't something that was decided on over a few beers by some nerds with money to spend. This took years of planning, by many countries and governments. The economy would have been much different when the ball started rolling on this idea and once set in motion, stopping would just prove to be a waste of all the funds spent up until that point. Look how long it takes for North America to realize that we don't all need SUVs with V8s. We still bitch about cars being under powered. No one seems to mind that 30 mpg is a magical upper limit. The rest of the world was cluing into smaller diesel engines and we were getting bigger and faster. It takes a long time to change directions once you start down a path. You might change your mind instantly after reading some article, but that doesn't mean that article changed the world over night.

CHAPOOT[aTm] report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3

LHC is more than the end result

Jan 07, 2009 21:22     

The massive, joint cooperation needed for the LHC provided much more than an ultimate experiment. World-wide relationships were formed, scientists were kept in the field, many, many lessons were learned - and it is still very likely to be fixed and complete its mission. Why did we go to the moon? We could have just waited 40 years and sent a robot, right?
Joe report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Old idea, little progress

Jan 07, 2009 21:43     

That is an old idea, and the technology has made little progress in 20 years. Go read the Amateur Scientist column of Scientific American from April 1989.
Don Sci report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Original Theory in 1979

Jan 08, 2009 12:44     

Time Travel was first theorized in the 19th century. Faster-than-Light (FTL) travel was theorized way before the 70s. Just because a theory is out there doesn't mean it viable, at least not in our life times. Should we just scrub any more propulsion technology because eventually FTL will be invented and we won't have to do all that sub-light mucking about? My goodness! Think before you give an opinion! The title of the article itself shows not only a severe and unjournalistic bias, but also just plain bad taste. The LHC costs less than the current US economic "Bailout" and will increase the quality of life for everyone on earth. But you're right what a waste of money for this load of BS. Let's just wait until some wacko gets his theory to work. We don't need any more medical research. Eventually someone will find the perfect way to cure all cancers. Why spend any money on cancer research before then?

Paul123 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

LHC Tangible Benefit

Jan 08, 2009 12:49     

The computer that you are using to read this is a tangible benefit of particle physics. What will be the benefit of the LHC? We can imagine that about as much as Einstein could imaging a computer that sits on your lap and is as fast as even the slowest of today's laptops. Just because you cannot imagine the benefit does not mean it won't be there. History has shown that physics research is very beneficial.

Paul123 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

@ Author

Jan 09, 2009 05:55     

Rick, While I disagree with your opinion on the matter, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the fact that you disconnect and distinguish your opinion from the reporting portion of your article. Relatively unbiased reporting has been a driving force in making this website a mainstay in my daily reading for tech and tech related news. I hope that a comment such as this will encourage you and your colleagues to perpetuate the professionalism of your work. Perhaps you can "learn" Wired, Gizmodo, and Engadget while you're at it. [Thank you. And please know how much we appreciate our readers, especially those with well thought out posts - even if they disagree with us in every measurable way. Debate is crucial, and intelligent discourse is essential for successful debate. Thanks for your post. -Rick]

Nick report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Economy

Jan 09, 2009 16:28     

One argument I haven't heard are the benefits of the $9 billion spent so far. How many people benefit directly from the construction and operation of the LHC? The jobs that the LHC created help to offset the cost of the initial investment. Also, this is a global project on an unprecedented scale that shows that nations can come together for a common peaceful goal at a time when it seems we can't agree on anything meaningful.

Paul S report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

re: Economy

Jan 09, 2009 16:52     

Not to forget that they would be building nuclear rockets or other doomsday devices if we couldn't keep them occupied with other interesting endeavours, lol. ;-)
meandmyself report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0