Racing Ahead at the Speed of Light

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RHICs 2.4 mile ring has six intersection points where its two rings of accelerating magnets cross allowing the particle beams to collide. The collisions produce the fleeting signals that when captured by one of RHICs experimental detectors provide ph ...
RHICs 2.4 mile ring has six intersection points where its two rings of accelerating magnets cross, allowing the particle beams to collide. The collisions produce the fleeting signals that, when captured by one of RHICs experimental detectors, provide physicists with information about the most fundamental workings of nature.

Imagine trying to catch up to something moving close to the speed of light - the fastest anything can move - and sending ahead information in time to make mid-path flight corrections. Impossible? Not quite. Physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, have achieved this tricky task - and the results may save the Lab money and time in their quest to understand the inner workings of the early universe.


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