|
Professor debunks Hollywood myths about the Large Hadron Collider |
|
|
|
|
Written by Johnathan Silver, The Shorthorn staff
|
|
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 12:00 AM |
 Physics professor Kaushik De debunks one of various myths between the real Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva and its fictitious properties in the movie Angels and Demons Wednesday at the Chemistry and Physics Building. De addressed common myths like black holes leading to the destruction of Earth. In reality black holes created in the collider are too small to cause any significant damage. The world’s largest particle collider smashes particles after traveling 17 miles in order to help study mysteries of science. (The Shorthorn: Rasy Ran)
In the movie, a new pope is being chosen. The Illuminati, an anti-Catholicism group from the 18th century, steal antimatter from CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the home of the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, and threaten to kill top papal candidates and destroy the Vatican, said UTA physics professor De.
He is the U.S. computing operations coordinator for ATLAS, the particle physics experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
“Angels and Demons is a work of fiction that borrows ideas from science very loosely,” De said. “As a scientist, I want to make sure that people know what is fact and what is fiction.”
De discussed what was true about the big screen’s interpretation of the collider.
The Large Hadron Collider
and ‘Angels and Demons’
What is the Large Hadron Collider?
A particle accelerator built to better understand the universe by clashing particles together.
What is matter?
Anything in the universe that takes up space.
What is antimatter?
The same as matter, but has an opposite electrical charge.
If one comes in contact with the other, poof! Both masses neutralize each other, and energy is made.
Fiction:
In the film Angels and Demons, a new pope is being chosen. The Illuminati, depicted in the film as a secret anti–Catholic group, kidnaps the four top papal candidates. The Illuminati threatens to use stolen antimatter to kill the top candidates and destroy Vatican City.
Fact:
Antimatter exists.
The Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator that speeds collected particles to nearly the speed of light, produces antimatter by collisions. Also true, a large amount of antimatter can destroy Rome. Antimatter isn’t portable. Any contact with matter would cause it to just annihilate itself.
Source: Kaushik De, UTA physics professor and U.S. ATLAS computing operations coordinator
“When I watched the movie, I could immediately notice what was shot on location and what was recreated in Hollywood,” he said.
Lead actors Tom Hanks and Ayelet Zurer and director Ron Howard visited the collider. Parts of the collider were shot on site and others recreated, De said. In the movie, CERN’s control room has the collider in the background. In real life, the collider is mostly underground. It would be dangerous to get too close to the accelerator and the radiation it emits, he said.
Biology junior Charles Lim saw the movie and said he was surprised it would take hundreds of millions of years to produce one-fourth gram of antimatter.
“It gave me a lot of insight on the science behind Angels and Demons, ” he said.
Interim physics chair Alex Weiss delivered De’s introduction.
“It was really exciting because it is science reality, not science fiction,” he said. “It pointed out that there is so much to learn about the universe and about physics.”
The collider took 14 years to build. Some wanted it shut down because they believed black holes would emerge and filed a lawsuit to stop operation.
Miniature black holes do form in the collider but only last one-billionth of a second. Scientists proved to the courts that these black holes are not harmful because they don’t gather enough mass, De said.
“An analogy would be radioactivity,” he said. “It is everywhere in this room. It doesn’t mean that we can make an atom bomb out of it. There isn’t enough matter.”
Planetarium program coordinator Amy Barraclough said she liked De’s presentation.
“It gives people a glimpse into the world of physics and explains how it fits into pop culture,” she said.
Views: 1805 | E-mail
Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved |
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 20 August 2009 10:28 AM )
|
Schools/Colleges 
Be first to comment this article
