Main Beam Of The Large Hadron Collider - Info

Since the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, which was, in fact, the first particle accelerator, captured the public attention, many is the question what happens if the way of its main beam will be a live person? Well, fortunately (or unfortunately?) We do not need to guess this is what happened to the scientist Anatoly in 1978.

July 13, 1978 Researchers from the Institute of High Energy Physics of the USSR Anatoly during repair synchrotron U-70 (the most powerful at the time of its construction particle accelerator in the world) happened to be in the way of the main proton beam accelerator.

Beam entered his skull on the left side neck and went to the left of the nose. Various sources differ in their estimates of how much ionizing radiation received at this moment Anatoly, but some say that about 200,000 - 300,000 rad. In any case, the light was strong enough to burn a hole in bone, skin, and brain tissue.

According to Anatoly, at that moment when he saw a flash, the flash was brighter than a thousand of suns, but he did not feel any kind of pain. Over the next few days left side of his head terribly swollen and her skin is beginning to fall off. Bugorsky was taken to Moscow, where doctors prepared to witness his apparently imminent death but somehow survived Anatoly. To date, the left side of his face paralyzed due to nerve damage, left ear does not hear, and from time to time he suffers from seizures, but in all other respects Anatoly perfectly healthy. He managed to finish his doctoral thesis and is still alive.

Doses of radiation in 200,000 to 300,000 happy if it was absorbed by the human body, it was more than enough to acute radiation sickness and death. If Bugorskogo, proton beam was so narrowly focused that went straight through the body - if it was a little wider, and smote a greater number of cells Anatoly probably would have died.

To be fair to say that by today's standards the Soviet U-70 - this is a very weak accelerator. When in 2015 will once again be running the Large Hadron Collider, it will have an energy of collision of two proton beams about 70 TeV - it is almost 200 times greater than 67 GeV U-70.