Have you ever wondered why the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), can't make particles move faster than the speed of light?After all, it can smash protons together with a huge force of 13 teraelectron volts (TEV), which is about 099999999。According to the special theory of relativity, very close to light, but not close enough.
Einstein's theory tells us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum – 300,000 kilometers per second.
Only massless particles such as photons can reach this ultimate limit. But protons, like all matter, also have mass. Quality is a tricky thing when it comes to speed.
You see, mass and energy are two sides of the same coin, and Einstein proved this perfectly with his equation e=mc 2.
This means that the more energy you give to an object, the more mass it gains. And the greater the mass, the more difficult it is to accelerate.
It's like trying to push the weight of your bike onto a truck. You need more strength to move the truck.
In order for mass to reach the speed of light, it needs to transfer an infinite amount of energy, which is not possible.
As the speed of a proton approaches the speed of light, its mass increases and its length decreases, making it increasingly difficult to push.
Eventually you will reach a point where no matter how much energy you inject into the proton, the proton will not move faster. He is trapped at maximum speed, which is always less than the speed of light.
Not only does the mass and length of the proton change, but so does its timing.
When protons approach the speed of light, time itself slows down. This is called time dilation, which means that everything else in the universe is moving faster than normal from a proton perspective.
So, even if a proton is able to reach the speed of light somehow, it will reach a state where time stops. It's not very interesting.
Vic mainline. The collider is designed to minimize interference with the particle beam, which is made up of billions of protons that move in opposite directions along a 27-kilometer ring.
The ring is in a vacuum, so there are no air molecules to collide with. The ring is also surrounded by powerful magnets that direct and focus the beam to four collision points, where they collide with each other and create new particles.
However, even in a vacuum, there are still gas molecules and scattered photons that can interact with protons.
These interactions may cause some protons to lose energy or change direction slightly, resulting in a decrease in the mass and intensity of the beam.
To prevent this, the Large Hadron Collider uses special devices called collimators and beam absorbers to absorb or deflect any unwanted particles before they reach the detector.
Three minutes to talk about popular science