What is a Partical Excelerator Used for?

[kermit911]

Hi all, I was watching T3 the other day and they had a Partical Excelerator in the military base. In the movie it became magnetic. What is something like that used for? I saw another movie were they made a very tiny black whole useing a Partical Excelerator. I'm sure that was ment just for the movies but it gives another example. Thanx

Kermit911

[Loosehead]

They are used to probe into the sub atomic world. Atoms are accelerated and smashed into other atoms and the debris is studied.

[Flurfl]

A Particle Accelerator is used for .. wait for it... accelerating particles!! Mostly for high energy physics experiments looking at the nature of matter and Quantum theory, that sort of thing. These guys have a big one, they also invented the world wide web :-)

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html

[Gef]

And they can probably spell as well.

[jake-the-peg]

Unless you're reading this on an LCD monitor you're probably looking at one right now.

Cathode ray tubes accelerate electrons and direct them into the coating inside the screen.

X-ray machines are another example - ever broken a bone? you owe the x-ray to a particle accelerator. In this case electrons are accelerated into a metal target which then emits x-rays.

During Reagans "star wars" program in the 80's there was a lot of research done on using linear accelerators as weapons but now the military mainly use them to control people's minds if they start to ask questions - or was that another film?