Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accelerator

Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by rhn_mk1 on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @02:14PM (#19617478)

I hate to be nitpicking, but "billion-electron-volt (BeV)" in the first sentence... hurts.

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by wintermutesGhst on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @02:53PM (#19617841)

It looks like it may be an antiquated term?

From the National Accelerator Laboratory Groundbreaking press release:

"Groundbreaking will be held Sunday, December 1, 1968, near here for the first permanent building in the research complex of the National Accelerator Laboratory (NAL) where the 200 Billion Electron Volt (BeV) accelerator will be located." [http://history.fnal.gov/groundbreaking.html]

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by anonytrary on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @02:23PM (#19617558)

It should read GeV (giga) correct?

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by petschge on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @03:27PM (#19618119)

Yes. The early seventies is when we so tens to hundres of GeV and even the LHC has only reached 6.5 TeV (per direction), well short of the alternative interpretation of 200 TeV.

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by rhn_mk1 on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @02:45PM (#19617773)

It's hard to tell without referring to external sources. It could be either GeV or TeV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by eigenloss on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @03:12PM (#19618003)

BeV would never mean TeV outside of the UK.

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by petschge on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @03:20PM (#19618071)

The long scale where "billion" means 1e12 is not that rare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#Long_sca...

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by ascorbic on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @04:14PM (#19618500)

But hasn't been used in the UK for at least a generation.

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by Falcorian on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @05:06PM (#19618923)

Confusing, yes. In this case, it's GeV.

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Re:Why Physicists Tried to Put a Ferret in a Particle Accele... by taneq on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @11:24PM (#19621538)

Should have been milliard-electron-volt, right?

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