Dubna is going to launch an analogue of the Large Hadron Collider, because of which scientists were accused of trying to destroy humanity.
Perhaps since the "opening" of the Bermuda Triangle, whose influence on immature minds was so vividly described by Vysotsky in a comic song, not a single idea of scientists has caused such a stir in society as the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. Hotheads argued that our planet would disappear in the formed black hole or dissolve in antimatter.
Bestselling author Dan Brown immediately released the hit "Angels and Demons", where the plot is built around an antimatter bomb (see "Continuous Movie"). Soon scientists at CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research, which runs the LHC) discovered the so-called God particle, or the Higgs boson, which gives the mass of all matter in the universe. But the Nobel Prize-2013 did not help the collider to get rid of the reputation of a project that needs an eye and an eye.
And here's the news: the hadron collider is being built in the Moscow region! Correspondents of "KP" went to Dubna, where on the territory of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) they began to build a gigantic experimental facility.
RACE OF SUPERPOWER
The site where the 500-meter collider ring will be built is located 120 kilometers north of Moscow on the banks of the Volga River. JINR Vice-Director Grigory Trubnikov, to whom I without concealment laid out the whole truth about black holes and the coming end of the world, nodded his head respectfully.
- It's absurd, of course, complete, - he summed up. - But from the point of view of PR, this is a brilliant move by CERN. They inflated such interest around the collider - just fantastic! Such advertising allowed them to get ahead. It remains for us to strive for our project to have the same correct PR. This is important for science …
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At one time, the lack of PR around the collider cost scientists dearly. The same Nobel Higgs boson should have been discovered 20 years ago either by us or by the Americans. Then, after the battle for primacy in space, where we managed to wash the Yankees, the "particle of God" became the subject of a new race of two superpowers.
In 1983, at the same time - Americans in Texas, and we in Protvin near Moscow - began to build colliders. The length of our orbit is 21 kilometers, it's almost like the Moscow Metro's Ring Line. The USSR allocated more than a million Soviet rubles a day for construction! Both projects reached their final stages, but when the USSR collapsed, the project died. US President Clinton immediately closed his costly response. Now in the United States, this decision of Clinton is considered a fatal mistake: the implementation of the project of the era would give them the basis for long-term hegemony not only in science.
WHO IS THE NOBEL?
The question arises: if a collider already exists at CERN, then why not carry out experiments on it? Why build his younger brother in Russia (in Dubna the ring is smaller and the energy is a thousand times lower) and spend billions of rubles?
“These are different areas of physics,” says Grigory Trubnikov. - Now in the world there are 6 - 7 super-priority tasks. The Higgs boson has already been discovered. But we are interested in another area: phase transitions in nuclear matter, which occurred at the early stage of the origin of the Universe, about one microsecond after the Big Bang.
A powerful setup is not needed to simulate this situation. Let me give you an example: you are interested in how water passes from one state of aggregation (liquid) to steam. You can heat water up to 1000 degrees, it will instantly evaporate, but you will not see anything. And we, relatively speaking, heat the nuclear "kettle" to 100 degrees and see how bubbles are formed, water boils and steam is obtained … That is, a phase transition and a mixed phase of matter are observed.
In addition to us, three more centers operate in this area: in Germany, Switzerland and the USA. Everyone understands that the observation of a phase transition in nuclear matter is definitely a Nobel Prize. But only the first of the four centers will receive it.
- Who is now closest to the finish line? - I ask the director of the JINR High Energy Physics Laboratory, Professor Vladimir Kekelidze.
- Firstly, I strongly doubt that only one person will receive the Nobel Prize, - Vladimir Dmitrievich answers. - Any discovery made in one scientific center may not be accepted by the world community. The results can be passed off as systematic errors, misunderstood effects, etc. An independent approach is needed on the other hand, repeating this phenomenon. I think that if there is a Nobel Prize, we will share it with someone. Whoever was the discoverer.
WHAT THE SCIENTISTS ARE LOOKING FOR
The cost of the Swiss collider is 7 billion euros. Our budget in Dubna is estimated at 17 billion rubles (about 0.5 billion euros). Why is this money spent?
“The ex-President of France, Sarkozy, spoke well on this topic,” says Vladimir Kekelidze. - He recalled the famous story: "Faraday did not discover electricity by innovating a candle." You can upgrade the candle as much as you like, but a new round of progress gives only new knowledge. What possibilities will give us an understanding of the phase transition of nuclear matter? We know what nuclear energy has given to humanity. But nuclear forces are only residual phenomena of the forces that bind quarks together. If we can control the limitless forces that lurk there, it will give people fantastic opportunities!
What revolutionary technologies are scientists referring to? The boldest hopes are connected with the solution of the global problem of mankind - energy shortage. According to the World Energy Council, the oil reserves of mankind will only last for 56 years. It is possible that experiments at the Russian collider will bring us closer to obtaining technology for a new safe nuclear power. And this, what the hell is not kidding, will make travel to other planets and galaxies possible …