Hentzau in "Not actually building giant space laser" shocker.

[hentzau]

Since I have a free hour, I thought I'd clear up a few things about what it is I actually do all day.  The internet would have you believe that I am building a giant space laser with which to destroy Pluto and take over the world.  Now, while this is certainly a worthy cause, it is not an entirely accurate description of my work.  Yes, I am trying

Comments

[hentzau]

Alas, no. They're two entirely different things. CERN is a gigantic /particle/ accelerator which uses electrical fields to propel beams of charged particles such as protons and electrons to ludicrously high energies (7TeV once they get the LHC online, which is roughly the same amount of energy as that of your typical air-dropped bomb). They do this because energy is equivalent to mass (e=mc^2) and they're looking for massive particles like the Higgs boson.

The light gas gun on the other hand detonates a shotgun shell which compresses a light gas to the point where it ruptures a metal disc, at which point the force of the now rapidly expanding gas is free to propel a small millimetre-sized projectile up to hypervelocities. Our projectiles are much bigger but they don't go at the speed of light.

Sorry to disappoint.

[hentzau]

Let's say I did find the Higgs boson down the back of my sofa. In the unlikely event of this happening /and/ the scientific world agreeing to change the name, it would inevitably be named after me. Hardly decent.

[_jenjen_]

Woah. All I have to say is: oooohhh, shiny.

You have the best project ever. And as I don't know huge amounts about science (very sad, as I rather like sciencey stuff) your light gas gun looks lasery enough for me to be mucho impressed.

[hentzau]

It does have one or two in it. We need them to measure how fast the projectile goes. So yeah, it is kind of lasery.

[_jenjen_]

Brilliant!