Popular accounts of the Large Hadron Collider often say it’s trying to ___1___ the conditions at the Big Bang.
“One of the things that’s different is this is a much simpler situation, right? We have a lot of energy in a small space, like you did at the Big Bang. But ___2___.”
Thomas LeCompte of Argonne National Lab is the physics coordinator for what’s called the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. We spoke at the AAAS meeting in Washington on February 20th.
“When we run protons, we only start with two particles rather than the, I don’t know, 10 to the 50th or however many particles there are ___3___. So it’s a much simpler system.
"That said, it’s not a completely bad ___4___ either. We know that the universe is expanding and cooling, so earlier on it was smaller and hotter. And we are studying the properties of small, hot things. But I don’t like saying that because it gives people the idea that the only thing we’re doing is really trying to ___5___. We’re also trying to just in general study the behavior of matter, energy, space and time on small scales.”
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
approximate we don’t have a whole universe in a small space in the visible universe analogy turn back the clock
许多报道称科学家尝试用大型强子对撞器模拟宇宙大爆炸。 “不同的是,我们模拟出来的是相当简化的状况。在狭小空间里能够聚集很大一部分能量,我们模拟的大爆炸就是这样的。但是这么小的一个空间不可能代替整个宇宙。” 来自美国阿贡国家实验室的托马斯•勒孔特是超导环场探测器(大型强子对撞器实验用)实验团队中的物理协调员。2月20日,在华盛顿举行的美国科学促进协会会议上托马斯接受了我的采访。 “我们最开始只用了2个粒子进行质子对撞实验,而没有用宇宙中的所有粒子。因此我们模拟的只是一个相当简化的系统。” “不过这个系统也不是一无是处。我们知道整个宇宙在不断扩张、持续变冷,早期的宇宙必定比较小、比较热,因此我们还研究,在研究小型热性物体。不过我不太愿意提及我们所做的上述研究,怕让人们觉得我们真的只想着让时间倒流,让宇宙还原。其实我们还在尝试小规模能量、空间、时间等的整体研究。”