How do particle accelerators work and what are they useful for
In: 1
They use magnets to accelerate beams of massive particles extremely fast and crash them into each other so they can measure the junk that flys off. By doing that, they can tell what’s inside of the particles.
The reason they’re so stonking huge is that unlike light beams/lasers, the beams in the accelerators are made of the heavy stuff. Beams of lighter particles don’t really make intereating crashes. If you want big wrecks you crash trains, not bicycles.
They accelerate subatomic particle beams, have them collide either with each other or with stationary targets, and measure what happens during that moment.
Its a way to find out how the physics works on that level, aince there is really no way of just looking at things of thwt scale (amd totally no way of observing those systems without changing them in the process, due to how the observation process works)
particle accelerators use magnets to push subatomic particles up to very high speeds. they then crash these particles into each other. this is useful because of the equivalence of mass and energy. when the particles collide they release that energy but not as just a random mess. everything at the subatomic level is quantized and so particles can only exist at very specific energy levels. if they have an energy budget sufficient to the job, then they should see predicted particles result from the collision, or not, and on to the next theory. the accelerators themselves need to keep getting bigger so they can reach higher energy levels.
Latest Answers