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Photons in th LHC

Tres Juicy
in Physics

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Hi all,

 

 

This has always bothered me:

 

Photons travel at the speed of light.

 

Why do we need to accelerate them in the LHC? Other, slower particles yes but not photons

 

Surely they're going as fast as possible already?

 

Also, why dont I get collisions occuring when I point two lasers at each other?

Edited by Tres Juicy

  • Author

They don't accelerate photons in the LHC. I think you might be getting confussed with protons. Which are massive and do not travel at the speed of light.

 

 

I see, that would make more sense...:doh:

Note also that despite what the name may suggest, "fast" is not really the point of a particle accelerator. The point is to give the objects (protons in this case) a high (kinetic) energy; the increase in velocity close to that of the speed of light is in some sense merely a side effect of increasing the kinetic energy.

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