Large Hadron Collider breaks energy record, still won’t power a toaster

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider just made the record books for something other than the cost of building a 27km-long circular tunnel. After achieving its first collision on Tuesday, the LHC roared beyond a trillion electron volts (1.18 TeV to be exact) literally smashing the 0.98 TeV energy record held by the Tevatron particle accelerator in Chicago since 2001. So far the LHC had been operating at a relatively modest 450 billion electron volts as it pushes up to full capacity of some 7 trillion electron volts. All that’s left now is the minor issue of unlocking the secrets of the universe when the real scientific testing gets underway early next year.

Large Hadron Collider breaks energy record, still won’t power a toaster originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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