atom smasher

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atom smasher

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

atom smasher

(Atomic Physics) physics the nontechnical name for accelerator²

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

par′ticle accel`erator

an electrostatic or electromagnetic device, as a cyclotron, that produces high-energy particles and focuses them on a target. Also called accelerator.

[1945–50]

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Noun

atom smasher - a scientific instrument that increases the kinetic energy of charged particles

particle accelerator, accelerator

betatron, induction accelerator - accelerates a continuous beam of electrons to high speeds by means of the electric field produced by changing magnetic flux

charge-exchange accelerator - an accelerator in which high-energy ions escape from plasma following charge exchange

Cockcroft and Walton accelerator, Cockcroft and Walton voltage multiplier, Cockcroft-Walton accelerator, Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier - a high-voltage machine in which rectifiers charge capacitors that discharge and drive charged particles through an accelerating tube

collider - an accelerator in which two beams of particles are forced to collide head on

cyclotron - an accelerator that imparts energies of several million electron-volts to rapidly moving particles

linac, linear accelerator - ions are accelerated along a linear path by voltage differences on electrodes along the path

scientific instrument - an instrument used by scientists

storage ring - container consisting of a set of magnets set in a doughnut-shaped ring around which charged particles from an accelerator can be kept circulating until they are used

Translations

atom smasher

n → Teilchenbeschleuniger m

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in periodicals archive ?

GENEVA -- Scientists behind the world's largest atom smasher have laid out their multibillion-euro vision to build an even bigger one, in hopes of unlocking even more secrets of matter and the universe in the coming decades.

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2010 - The world's largest atom smasher sets a record for high-energy collisions in a tunnel below the Swiss-French border at Geneva.

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A WEASEL brought the world's biggest atom smasher to a halt by gnawing through some wires - but he's not the only creature to cause humans chaos

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The world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern outside Geneva, has suspended operations because a weasel invaded a transformer that helps power the machine and set off an electrical outage on Thursday night.

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A new atom smasher for probing the inner cores of atoms, one of the three largest of its type in the world, is now in full operation at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IlL The atomic accelerator, called the ZGS for Zero Gradient Synchrotron, will accelerate protons to 12.5 billion electron volts, then hurl them at target atoms in an extremely intense beam.

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STOCKHOLM -- Nearly 50 years after they came up with the theory, but little more than a year since the world's biggest atom smasher delivered the proof, Britain's Peter Higgs and Belgian colleague Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for helping to explain how matter formed after the Big Bang.

Two win Nobel Prize for Higgs boson theory

Finding the particle - often referred to as the "God particle" - required teams of thousands of scientists and mountains of data from trillions of colliding protons in the world's biggest atom smasher - CERN's Large Hadron Collider - which produces energies simulating those one trillionth to two trillionths of a second after the Big Bang.

Nobel Prize for 'God particle' scientist Higgs

It was observed as part of the reams of data coming from CERN's 10-billion-dollar Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest atom smasher, on the Swiss-French border near Geneva.

Physics helps explain how universe came into being

It was observed as part of the reams of data coming from CERN's $10 billion Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest atom smasher, on the Swiss-French border near Geneva.

Physicists unveil results helping explain universe

The millions of collisions that take place inside an atom smasher generate tons of data, which requires a great deal of computing power.

Big Bang moments for big CIENCE

CERN's atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to investigate dark matter, antimatter and the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang.