This is how CERN [1] is hoping to find the Higgs Boson [2].
At 40 feet long, it is the biggest superconducting solenoid ever made, costing $65 million, weighing about 485,000 pounds, and containing as much iron as the Eiffel Tower. From the outside it looks like a huge steel bullet protruding from the center of a steel cylinder some 50 feet tall, covered in cables and instruments and surrounded by scaffolding. “The magnetic field is immense; if they switched it on now and you had steel-capped shoes, you’d fly over there,” Barney says.
Photo ©CERN Geneva – with plenty more over here [3].
—
And for a special bonus link, check out the awesome MareNostrum Supercomputer [4] of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center [5], installed beautifully [6] in the Chapel Torre Girona [7].
