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What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 8:02 am
by Dean
This might be a pretty simple question but I'm curious, what sort of noise does the LHC make when it's circulating and colliding beams? How does it compare to a jet engine for instance? Presumably given the energy level it's pretty loud when the beams are being collided?

Cheers,

Dean

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:35 am
by Lexa
You cannot be near the accelerators while they are working because of radioactivity.
But I bet they are not making any sound. Or maybe just the power supply units and/or the cryo and cooling and ventilation.

I already ask it a long time ago. People told me "it does not make any sound, nor vibration".
Well, in the end it is just a few mosquitoes knocking on each others :D.

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:29 pm
by DCWhitworth
Surely the collisions can't make any sound since they occur in a vacuum ?

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:35 pm
by publius
Clearly, for a machine that consumes 120MW of power, all you will hear is the cooling system! It's like millions of window air conditioners all running at once.

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:50 pm
by March_Hare
If there is noise, there has to be something that vibrates. So what vibrates in there that could make noise? Indeed, cooling, power supply, cryo, ventilation. Not the magnets though.

(But I agree that it's a nice mental picture: a whine that gets ever louder and higher when LHC starts accelerating particles to higher and higher energies.) :lol:

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:02 pm
by DCWhitworth
March_Hare wrote: (But I agree that it's a nice mental picture: a whine that gets ever louder and higher when LHC starts accelerating particles to higher and higher energies.) :lol:
That would probably be the Tin Foil Hat Brigade ;)

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:08 pm
by March_Hare
hehehe :lol:

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 7:03 am
by chriwi
By the way: are the magnets pulsed, in some way modulatet in a audible frequency or is the current rather stedy even HF? If the field of the big magnets changes with an audible frequency there should be enoug feromagnetig material arround which would make some noise even only in the stray field. Like the 16kHz nois of the line-transformer of old CTR-TVs.

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:40 pm
by DCWhitworth
Lexa wrote:You cannot be near the accelerators while they are working because of radioactivity.
Some form of Quantum Zen theory then ? If a collider bashes particles together, but no one is there to hear it does it make a noise ?

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:49 pm
by Xymox
hehehehe

If you observe the noise, does it alter the noise ? SO its never possible to know what the LHC sounds like ?

When the particles hit the detector they are no longer in a vacuum. Maybe they scream from just being involved in a horrible collision ?

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:25 am
by chriwi
I don't belive in "screaming particles", so we should rather ask if the detectors make a nois when they detect a particle (rather not for one but for milions of particles in one second) and that might be ratrher different for the diffrent types of detectors. The silicondetectors should be rather quiet, cause here only elctrons are mooved when the particles are passing through. I am not sure of the scintilators, but their main task is to emit a flash of light when a particle is striking.
Besides that I belive that a dump is rather noisy, because there a lot of energy is deposited in a big block of material what should result in a temperature rais and therefore in an expansion of the material which should generate some noise.

Re: What sort of noise does the worlds largest machine make?

Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 2:50 pm
by seabass
Hah!

I guess this is a popular question

good stuff!

:mrgreen: