CERN wants to build a particle collider that’s four times bigger than the LHC

MIT Technology Review ^ | January 16, 2019 | Staff

[C19fan]

CERN wants to go super-sized. The particle physics lab near Geneva in Switzerland has just unveiled its plans for a replacement for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The news: CERN has released a design report for the Future Circular Collider, which would be four times as big as the LHC. Colliders send particles around a loop at incredible speeds and then let researchers analyze the fallout when they smash into one another. The design for the FCC would be some 100 kilometers (62 miles) long and, when operating at full capacity, collide particles at 10 times the energy of the LHC.

[C19fan]

CERN claims that the 100 KM particle accelerator will cost 30 billion Euros, around $37 billion. Back in the 80s, the Reagan administration cancelled the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) which would have been a similar size. The SSC costs escalated to an estimated $12 billion. In today's dollars that would be around $33 billion US.

[nwrep]

Wow, yes, the Superconducting Super Collider. It has been ages since I heard that phrase. I remember how big it was in the 1980s...

[Cooter]

The Reagan administration approved the SSC. It was canceled in 1993 under Clinton.

[PAR35]

It would be a lot cheaper if they’d buy up the SCSC and finish it out.

One of the biggest boondoggles in government spending. It did permit a lot of middle class Blacks to buy up nice houses at a good discount in DeSoto and surrounding areas.

[C19fan]

I stand corrected.

[SgtHooper]

I worked there. There were physikers still moving to the Waxahachie area while the SSCL was being closed down. The Rats set back US science with that stupid move.

[BenLurkin]

[treetopsandroofs]

So in the future after it’s built, it will simply be the FCC, Fuge Circular Collider.

[minnesota_bound]

Build it in Texas. Everything is big there. Sheldon can run it.

[VTenigma]

I’m just waiting for them to open a black hole in a singularity experiment and draw in the solar system. That will be cool.