Brian Cox: What went wrong at the Large Hadron Collider

Translator: Mojca Miklavec Reviewer: Kaja Kren

Last year at TED I gave an introduction to the LHC.

Lani sem na TED-u predstavil veliki hadronski trkalnik (LHC)

And I promised to come back and give you an update

in takrat obljubil, da se vrnem z novicami

on how that machine worked.

o tem, kako naprava deluje.

So this is it. And for those of you that weren't there,

To je torej to. Za vse tiste, ki vas takrat ni bilo –

the LHC is the largest scientific experiment ever attempted --

LHC je največji znanstveni eksperiment vseh časov –

27 kilometers in circumference.

z obsegom 27 kilometrov.

Its job is to recreate the conditions

Njegova naloga je poustvariti pogoje,

that were present less than a billionth of a second after the universe began,

kakršni so vladali v vesolju manj kot miljardinko sekunde po njegovem začetku,

up to 600 million times a second.

in to ponavljati do 600 milijonkrat na sekundo.

It's nothing if not ambitious.

To je zelo ambiciozno.

This is the machine below Geneva.

Ta naprava stoji pod Ženevo.

We take the pictures of those mini-Big Bangs inside detectors.

Znotraj detektorjev zajemamo slike teh mini "Velikih pokov".

This is the one I work on. It's called the ATLAS detector --

To je detektor, na katerem delam jaz. Imenuje se ATLAS –

44 meters wide, 22 meters in diameter.

širok je 44 metrov s premerom 22 metrov.

Spectacular picture here of ATLAS under construction

Spektakularna fotografija ATLASa v času gradnje,

so you can see the scale.

tako da lahko vidite skalo.

On the 10th of September last year we turned the machine on for the first time.

10. septembra lani smo napravo prvič zagnali

And this picture was taken by ATLAS.

in ATLAS je posnel tole sliko,

It caused immense celebration in the control room.

kar je sprožilo val navdušenja v nadzorni sobi.

It's a picture of the first beam particle

To je slika prvega snopa žarkov

going all the way around the LHC,

ki naredi krog okrog LHC-ja,

colliding with a piece of the LHC deliberately,

se namenoma zaleti v njegov del

and showering particles into the detector.

ter razprši novonastale delce v detektor.

In other words, when we saw that picture on September 10th

Drugače povedano – ko smo desetega septembra zagledali to sliko,

we knew the machine worked,

smo vedeli, da naprava deluje,

which is a great triumph.

kar je bil izjemen dosežek.

I don't know whether this got the biggest cheer,

Ne vem, ali smo bili bolj navdušeni nad tem,

or this, when someone went onto Google

ali tem, ko je nekdo šel na Google

and saw the front page was like that.

in opazil naslovno stran, ki je izgledala takole.

It means we made cultural impact

To je pomenilo, da smo imeli tako kulturni vpliv

as well as scientific impact.

kot tudi vpliv na znanost.

About a week later we had a problem with the machine,

Približno teden dni kasneje smo imeli težavo z napravo,

related actually to these bits of wire here -- these gold wires.

povezano z deli teh žic – teh zlatih žic.

Those wires carry 13 thousand amps

Po teh kablih teče 13.000 amperov,

when the machine is working in full power.

ko naprava deluje s polno močjo.

Now the engineers amongst you will look at them and say,

Tisti med vami, ki ste inženirji, boste ob pogledu nanje dejali:

"No they don't. They're small wires."

"Ne, to ne gre. To se vendar drobne žičke."

They can do that because

Vendar to zmorejo, kajti

when they are very cold they are what's called superconducting wire.

kadar so zelo ohlajene, postanejo takoimenovane superprevodne žice.

So at minus 271 degrees,

Torej pri 271-ih stopinjah pod ničlo,

colder than the space between the stars,

kar je hladneje od medzvezdnega prostora,

those wires can take that current.

ti kabli lahko prevajajo tolikšen tok.

In one of the joints between over 9,000 magnets in LHC,

Pri eni izmed povezav med več kot devet tisočimi magneti v LHC-ju

there was a manufacturing defect.

je prišlo do napake pri izdelavi.

So the wire heated up slightly,

Žica se je rahlo segrela

and its 13,000 amps suddenly encountered electrical resistance.

in na njenih 13.000 amperov je nenadoma začel delovati električni upor.

This was the result.

In to je bil rezultat.

Now that's more impressive

To je še bolj presunljivo,

when you consider those magnets weigh over 20 tons,

če pomislite, da ti magneti tehtajo preko 20 ton

and they moved about a foot.

in da so se premaknili za približno 30 cm.

So we damaged about 50 of the magnets.

Poškodovali smo približno 50 magnetov.

We had to take them out, which we did.

Morali smo jih odstraniti, kar smo tudi storili.

We reconditioned them all, fixed them.

Prenovili smo jih, jih popravili.

They're all on their way back underground now.

Zdaj so vsi na poti nazaj v podzemlje.

By the end of March the LHC will be intact again.

Do konca marca bo LHC zopet v prvotnem stanju.

We will switch it on,

Zagnali ga bomo

and we expect to take data in June or July,

in pričakujemo, da bomo od junija ali julija zajemali podatke

and continue with our quest to find out

in nadaljevali z iskanjem

what the building blocks of the universe are.

gradnikov vesolja.

Now of course, in a way

Seveda se po eni strani

those accidents reignite the debate

ob takih nesrečah vnamejo debate

about the value of science and engineering at the edge. It's easy to refute.

o vrednosti znanosti in inženirstva na robu mogočega. To je enostavno izpodbijati.

I think that the fact that it's so difficult,

Po mojem prepričanju že samo dejstvo, da je tako težko,

the fact that we're overreaching, is the value of things like the LHC.

da presegamo meje, daje vrednost projektom, kakršen je LHC.

I will leave the final word to an English scientist, Humphrey Davy,

Zadnjo besedo bom prepustil angleškemu znanstveniku, Humphreyju Davyju,

who, I suspect,

ki je – sumim,

when defending his protege's useless experiments --

da med zagovarjanjem neuporabnih poskusov svojega varovanca –

his protege was Michael Faraday --

njegov varovanec je bil Michael Faraday –

said this, "Nothing is so dangerous

rekel tole: "Nič ni tako nevarnega

to the progress of the human mind

za napredek človeškega uma

than to assume that our views of science are ultimate,

kot predpostavljati, da so naši pogledi na znanost ultimativni,

that there are no mysteries in nature,

da v naravi ni skrivnosti,

that our triumphs are complete, and that

da so naši dosežki popolni in da

there are no new worlds to conquer."

ni več novih svetov, ki bi jih lahko osvojili."

Thank you.

Hvala.

(Applause)

(aplavz)