Official News - page 9

REAL LIFE NEWS: THE LARGEST SUPERCONDUCTING MAGNET

by Hazed

Particle physics is not something that I find particularly interesting, so I wouldn't normally bother with the news that the largest superconducting magnet ever built has been successfully powered up. But there is a reason for reporting this so bear with me...

The magnet is part of the Atlas detector in the Cern lab in Switzerland. It's 46m long and 25m high and is the largest volume detector ever constructed for particle physics. Amongst the questions Atlas will be focussing on are: why do particles have mass? What is the universe really made of? Why is there so much more matter than there is antimatter?

Ok, that's the boring detail, and now to the reason I am bothering with this. Take a look at this picture of the magnet. It shows the eight superconducting coils, each housed in a 26m by 5m structure. Impressive!

If particle physics is your thing you can find out more about the Atlas here.

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