document_title: Grand Ole Opry

question_text: who has been fired from the grand ole opry

text: Grand Ole Opry

text: History[edit]

text: Beginnings[edit]

text: The Grand Ole Opry started as the WSM Barn Dance in the new fifth-floor radio studio of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company in downtown Nashville on November 28, 1925. On October 18, 1925, management began a program featuring "Dr. Humphrey Bate and his string quartet of old-time musicians." On November 2, WSM hired long-time announcer and program director George D. "Judge" Hay, an enterprising pioneer from the National Barn Dance program at WLS in Chicago, who was also named the most popular radio announcer in America as a result of his radio work with both WLS and WMC in Memphis, Tennessee. Hay launched the WSM Barn Dance with 77-year-old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson on November 28, 1925, which is celebrated as the birth date of the Grand Ole Opry.[8]

text: Some of the bands regularly on the show during its early days included Bill Monroe, the Possum Hunters (with Dr. Humphrey Bate), the Fruit Jar Drinkers with Uncle Dave Macon, the Crook Brothers, the Binkley Brothers' Dixie Clodhoppers, Sid Harkreader, Deford Bailey, Fiddlin' Arthur Smith, and the Gully Jumpers.[9]

text: Judge Hay, however, liked the Fruit Jar Drinkers and asked them to appear last on each show because he wanted to always close each segment with "red hot fiddle playing". They were the second band accepted on Barn Dance, with the Crook Brothers being the first. When the Opry began having square dancers on the show, the Fruit Jar Drinkers always played for them. In 1926, Uncle Dave Macon, a Tennessee banjo player who had recorded several songs and toured the vaudeville circuit, became its first real star.[9]

text: Name[edit]

text: The phrase "Grand Ole Opry" was first uttered on the air on December 10, 1927.[10] At the time, Barn Dance followed the NBC Red Network's Music Appreciation Hour, a program of classical music and selections from grand opera presented by classical conductor Walter Damrosch. On that particular night, Damrosch had remarked that "there is no place in the classics for realism." In response, Opry presenter George Hay said:

text: Friends, the program which just came to a close was devoted to the classics. Doctor Damrosch told us that there is no place in the classics for realism. However, from here on out for the next three hours, we will present nothing but realism. It will be down to earth for the "earthy".

text: Hay then introduced DeFord Bailey, the man he had dubbed the "Harmonica Wizard", saying:

text: For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on, we will present the "Grand Ole Opry".

text: Bailey then stepped up to the mic to play "The Pan-American Blues," his song inspired by the Pan-American, a premier L&N Railroad passenger train.[10][11]

text: Larger venues[edit]

text: As audiences for the live show increased, National Life & Accident Insurance's radio venue became too small to accommodate the hordes of fans. They built a larger studio, but it was still not large enough. After several months with no audiences, National Life decided to allow the show to move outside its home offices. In October 1934, the Opry moved into then-suburban Hillsboro Theatre (now the Belcourt); and then on June 13, 1936, to the Dixie Tabernacle in East Nashville. The Opry then moved to the War Memorial Auditorium, a downtown venue adjacent to the State Capitol. A 25-cent admission was charged to try to curb the large crowds, but to no avail. On June 5, 1943, the Opry moved to the Ryman Auditorium.

text: Top-charting country music acts performed during the Ryman years, including Roy Acuff, called the King of Country Music, Hank Williams, Webb Pierce, Faron Young, Martha Carson, Lefty Frizzell, and many others.

text: One hour of the Opry was nationally-broadcast by the NBC Red Network from 1939 to 1956; for much of its run, it aired one hour after the program that had inspired it, National Barn Dance. The NBC segment, originally known by the name of its sponsor, The Prince Albert Show, was first hosted by Acuff, who was succeeded by Red Foley from 1946 to 1954. From October 15, 1955 to September 1956, ABC-TV aired a live, hour-long television version once a month on Saturday nights (sponsored by Ralston-Purina), pre-empting one hour of the then-90-minute Ozark Jubilee. From 1955 to 1957, Al Gannaway owned and produced both The Country Show and Stars of the Grand Ole Opry, filmed programs syndicated by Flamingo Films. Gannaway's Stars of the Grand Ole Opry was the first television show shot in color.[12]

text: On October 2, 1954, a teenage Elvis Presley made his only Opry performance. Although the audience reacted politely to his revolutionary brand of rockabilly music, after the show Opry manager Jim Denny told Presley's producer Sam Phillips that the singer's style did not suit the program.[13]

text: In the 1960s, as the hippie counterculture movement spread, the Opry maintained a strait-laced, conservative image with "longhairs" not being featured on the show. The Byrds were a notable exception. Country rock pioneer Gram Parsons, who at that time was a member of The Byrds, was in Nashville to work on the band's country rock album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo.[14] The band's record label, Columbia Records, had arranged for The Byrds to be allowed to perform at the Ryman on March 15, 1968, a prospect that thrilled Parsons.[14] However, when the band took the stage the audience's response was immediately hostile, resulting in derisive heckling, booing and mocking calls of "tweet, tweet" and "cut your hair"[15][16] The Byrds further outraged the Opry establishment by breaking with accepted protocol when they performed Parsons' song "Hickory Wind" instead of the Merle Haggard song "Life in Prison", as had been announced by Tompall Glaser.[14]

text: Another artist that ran afoul of the Opry's stringent standards was Jerry Lee Lewis, who, after several years of success on the country charts, made his first and only appearance on the show on January 20, 1973. Given two conditions for his appearance (no rock and roll and no profanity), Lewis proceeded to disregard both (referring to himself as a certain unairable maternal insult at one point) and, in a continuous 40-minute set, played a mixture of his rock and roll hits and covers of other singers' country songs. Lewis was said to be bitter about how he was treated when he first arrived in Nashville in 1955 and supposedly used his Opry appearance to exact revenge on the Nashville music industry.[17]

text: Grand Ole Opry House[edit]

text:
Grand Ole Opry House

U.S. National Register of Historic Places

Grand Ole Opry House

Show map of TennesseeShow map of the USShow all

Location
2804 Opryland Drive, Nashville, Tennessee 37214[19]

Coordinates
36°12′24″N 86°41′32″W / 36.20667°N 86.69222°W / 36.20667; -86.69222Coordinates: 36°12′24″N 86°41′32″W / 36.20667°N 86.69222°W / 36.20667; -86.69222

Area
4 acres (approx.)[19]

Built
1972-74[19]

Architect
Welton Becket & Associates; Pierre Cabrol[19]

Architectural style
Modern/Brutalist[19]

Restored
2010 (flood damage remediation)

NRHP reference #
14001222[18]

Added to NRHP
January 27, 2015

text: The Ryman Auditorium was home to the Opry until 1974. By the late 1960s, National Life & Accident desired a new, larger and more modern home for the long-running radio show. Ryman Auditorium, already 51 years old at the time the Opry moved there, was beginning to suffer from disrepair as the downtown neighborhood around it fell victim to increasing urban decay. Despite these shortcomings, the show's popularity was increasing and its weekly crowds were outgrowing the 3,000-seat venue. The Opry's operators were seeking to build a new air-conditioned theatre with a greater capacity, ample parking, and the ability to easily serve as a television production facility. The ideal location would be in a less urbanized area of town, providing visitors a more controlled, safer, and more enjoyable experience.[20]

text: National Life & Accident purchased farmland owned by a local sausage manufacturer (Rudy's Farm) in the Pennington Bend area of Nashville, nine miles east of downtown, and adjacent to the newly constructed Briley Parkway. The new Opry venue was to be the centerpiece of a grand entertainment complex at that location, which would later come to include Opryland USA Theme Park and Opryland Hotel.

text: The theme park opened to the public on June 30, 1972,[21] well ahead of the 4,000-seat Opry House, which debuted nearly two years later, on Saturday, March 16, 1974.

text: Opening night was attended by sitting U.S. President Richard Nixon, who played a few songs on the piano.[22] To carry on the tradition of the show's run at the Ryman, a six-foot circle of oak was cut from the corner of the Ryman's stage and inlaid into center stage at the new venue.[23] The artists on stage usually stand on the circle as they perform.

text: While the theme park was closed and demolished following the 1997 season, the Grand Ole Opry House remains in use. The immediate area around it was left intact through the construction of Opry Mills, which opened in May 2000.

text: The Opry continues to be performed every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday at the Grand Ole Opry House from March through November each year.

text: The Grand Ole Opry House was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 27, 2015.[24][25]

text: Return to Ryman Auditorium[edit]

text: Following the departure of the Opry, Ryman Auditorium sat mostly vacant and decaying for twenty years. An initial effort by National Life & Accident to tear down the Ryman and use its bricks to build a chapel at Opryland USA was met with resounding resistance from the public, including the influential musicians of the time. The plans were abandoned, and the building remained standing with an uncertain future. Despite the absence of performances, the building still held such significance as an attraction that it would remain open for tours.[26]

text: In 1991 and 1992, Emmylou Harris performed a series of concerts there and released some of the recordings as an album entitled At the Ryman. The concert and album's high acclaim renewed interest in reviving Ryman Auditorium as an active venue. Beginning in September 1993, Gaylord Entertainment undertook a full renovation of the Ryman, restoring it into a world-class concert hall that reopened with a broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion on June 4, 1994.[26]

text: On Sunday, October 18, 1998, the Opry held a benefit show at Ryman Auditorium, marking its return to the venue for the first time since its final show on March 15, 1974.[27] The show was well received by fans, performers, and management alike, and so the decision was made to host the Opry's regular shows there on January 15 & 16, 1999 as part of the celebration to commemorate 25 years at the new venue.

text: Beginning in November 1999, the Opry was held at Ryman Auditorium for three months, partly due to the ongoing construction of Opry Mills. The Opry has returned to the Ryman for the three winter months every year since, allowing the show to acknowledge its roots while also taking advantage of a smaller venue during an off-peak season for tourism.[27] While still officially the Grand Ole Opry, the shows there are billed as Opry At The Ryman. From 2002 to 2014, a traveling version of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular took up residence at the Grand Ole Opry House each holiday season while the Opry was away. It was replaced by Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical beginning in 2015.[28]

text: 2010 flooding[edit]

text: In May 2010, the Opry House was flooded, along with much of Nashville, due to the Cumberland River overflowing its banks. While repairs were made, the Opry itself remained uninterrupted. Over the course of the summer of 2010, the broadcast temporarily originated from alternate venues in Nashville, with Ryman Auditorium hosting the majority of the shows. Other venues included the TPAC War Memorial Auditorium, another former Opry home; TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall; Nashville Municipal Auditorium; Allen Arena at Lipscomb University; and the Two Rivers Baptist Church.[29]

text: Much of the auditorium's main floor seating, the backstage areas and the entire stage (including the inlaid circle of wood from the Ryman's stage) was underwater during the flood. While the Grand Ole Opry House's stage was replaced thereafter, the Ryman circle was restored and again placed at center stage in the Grand Ole Opry House before shows resumed.[30][31] The remediation following the flood also resulted in a renovated backstage area, including the construction of more dressing rooms and a performer's lounge.

text: The Opry returned to the Grand Ole Opry House on September 28, 2010 in a special edition of the Opry entitled Country Comes Home that was televised live on Great American Country. The evening was filled with one-of-a-kind Opry moments. Martina McBride and Connie Smith dueted on Smith's signature hit "Once a Day", and other collaborations included Dierks Bentley and Del McCoury ("Roll On Buddy, Roll On"), Josh Turner and Lorrie Morgan ("Golden Ring"), and Montgomery Gentry and Charlie Daniels Band ("Devil Went Down To Georgia"), among others. The show closed with an all-star guitar jam featuring Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Steve Wariner, Ricky Skaggs, and Marty Stuart.[32]

text: Broadcasts[edit]

text: The Grand Ole Opry is broadcast live on WSM-AM at 7 p.m. CT on Saturday nights, shortened from a previous time start of 6:30. A similar program, the Friday Night Opry, airs live on Friday nights.From February through December, the Tuesday Night Opry is also aired live.[33] Wednesday shows are typically presented in the summer months. The length of the show varies; as of October 2016, the show runs three nights a week for 2¼ hours each night (the Saturday night shows have often extended as late as midnight).

text: The Opry can also be heard live on Willie's Roadhouse on channel 59 on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. A condensed radio program, America's Opry Weekend, is syndicated to stations around the United States. The program is also streamed on WSM's website.[33]

text: ABC broadcast the Grand Old Opry as a monthly series from 1955 to 1956. PBS televised annual live performances from 1978 to 1981.[34] In 1985, The Nashville Network began airing an edited half-hour version of the program as Grand Ole Opry Live; the show moved to Country Music Television (expanding to an hour in the process), and then to the Great American Country (GAC) cable network[35] with its Opry Live show no longer televised.[36] RFD-TV carries reruns of Opry telecasts under the title Opry Encore.[37]

text: Membership[edit]

text: Regular performers at the Grand Ole Opry can be inducted into the organization as a member, by way of an existing member nominating them. Opry membership must be maintained throughout an artist's career and expires when the performer dies. Although a number of legendary country artists either lost their Opry membership (such as Hank Williams, Sr. and Willie Nelson) or never received it in their lifetimes (longtime leading hitmakers Merle Haggard, George Strait, and Conway Twitty being prominent examples), receiving Opry membership is considered an honor equivalent to a hall of fame induction.

text: Controversies[edit]

text: In April 1963 Opry management made a rule that members had to perform on at least 26 shows a year to keep their membership active.[38] WSM dropped the number of required performances to 20 in January 1964;[38] in 2000 the minimum number of Opry performances was at 12.[39] The minimum number of performances has reduced over the years, but artists offered membership are expected to show a dedication to the Opry with frequent attendance.[39]

text: Another controversy that raged for years was over allowable instrumentation, especially the use of drums and electrically amplified instruments. Some purists were appalled at the prospect; traditionally a string bass provided the rhythm component in country music and percussion instruments were seldom used. Electric amplification, then new, was regarded as the province of popular music and jazz in 1940s. Though the Opry allowed electric guitars and steel guitars by World War II, the restrictions against drums and horns continued. They caused a conflict when Bob Wills[40] and Pee Wee King[41] defied the show's ban on drums.

text: Commercialization[edit]

text: The company has enforced its trademark on the name "Grand Ole Opry", for which it owns trademark registrations in the United States and in numerous countries around the world.It has taken court action to limit use of the word "opry" (which the organization has not directly trademarked) to members of the Opry and products associated with or licensed by it, and to discourage use of the word in ways that would imply a connection to the Grand Ole Opry.[42] In late 1968, for instance, WSM sued Opry Records, a record label that was independent of WSM,[43] and the court stated that "the record is replete with newspaper and magazine articles and clippings which demonstrate conclusively that the term 'Opry', standing alone as defendant has used it, is constantly used in country and western music circles in referring to plaintiff's 'Grand Ole Opry'."[44] The court also stated "the defendant has appropriated, at its peril, the dominant or salient term in the plaintiff's mark, a term which identified the 'Grand Ole Opry' in the mind of the public many years before the inception of 'Opry Records' – the name adopted by defendant."[45] In another case, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board granted summary judgment that the term "Opry" is a generic term (and thus no more protected than the words "Grand" or "Ole") but the Federal Circuit court reversed this decision.[46] As recently as 2009, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board granted judgment against Texas Opry House, LLC, which had filed a trademark application for TEXAS OPRY HOUSE.[47]

text: In 2004, it was announced that the Grand Ole Opry had contracted for the first time with a "presenting sponsor", Cracker Barrel, and the sponsoring company's name would be associated with Grand Ole Opry in all its advertising.[48] Humana, Inc., Cracker Barrel, and Dollar General are the present sponsors of the Opry.[49]

text: Honors[edit]

text:
Peabody Award, 1983
National Radio Hall of Fame induction, 1992


document_title: Delhi Sultanate

question_text: when did the delhi sultanate lay its foundation

root

text: Delhi Sultanate

text: Background[edit]

text: The context behind the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in India was part of a wider trend affecting much of the Asian continent, including the whole of southern and western Asia: the influx of nomadic Turkic peoples from the Central Asian steppes. This can be traced back to the 9th century, when the Islamic Caliphate began fragmenting in the Middle East, where Muslim rulers in rival states began enslaving non-Muslim nomadic Turks from the Central Asian steppes, and raising many of them to become loyal military slaves called Mamluks. Soon, Turks were migrating to Muslim lands and becoming Islamicized. Many of the Turkic Mamluk slaves eventually rose up to become rulers, and conquered large parts of the Muslim world, establishing Mamluk Sultanates from Egypt to Afghanistan, before turning their attention to the Indian subcontinent.[18]

tag: p

text: It is also part of a longer trend predating the spread of Islam. Like other settled, agrarian societies in history, those in the Indian subcontinent have been attacked by nomadic tribes throughout its long history. In evaluating the impact of Islam on the subcontinent, one must note that the northwestern subcontinent was a frequent target of tribes raiding from Central Asia in the pre-Islamic era. In that sense, the Muslim intrusions and later Muslim invasions were not dissimilar to those of the earlier invasions during the 1st millennium.[20]

text: By 962 AD, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in South Asia were under a wave of raids from Muslim armies from Central Asia.[21] Among them was Mahmud of Ghazni, the son of a Turkic Mamluk military slave,[22] who raided and plundered kingdoms in north India from east of the Indus river to west of Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030.[23] Mahmud of Ghazni raided the treasuries but retracted each time, only extending Islamic rule into western Punjab.[24][25]

text: The wave of raids on north Indian and western Indian kingdoms by Muslim warlords continued after Mahmud of Ghazni.[26] The raids did not establish or extend permanent boundaries of their Islamic kingdoms. The Ghurid sultan Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori, commonly known as Muhammad of Ghor, began a systematic war of expansion into north India in 1173.[27] He sought to carve out a principality for himself by expanding the Islamic world.[23][28] Muhammad of Ghor sought a Sunni Islamic kingdom of his own extending east of the Indus river, and he thus laid the foundation for the Muslim kingdom called the Delhi Sultanate.[23] Some historians chronicle the Delhi Sultanate from 1192 due to the presence and geographical claims of Muhammad Ghori in South Asia by that time.[29]

text: Ghori was assassinated in 1206, by Ismāʿīlī Shia Muslims in some accounts or by Hindu Khokhars in others.[30] After the assassination, one of Ghori's slaves (or mamluks, Arabic: مملوك), the Turkic Qutb al-Din Aibak, assumed power, becoming the first Sultan of Delhi.[23]

text: Dynasties[edit]

text:
Delhi Sultanate

Ruling dynasties

Mamluk dynasty[show]

Qutb al-Din Aibak
1206–1210

Aram Shah
1210–1211

Iltutmish
1211–1236

Rukn ud din Firuz
1236

Razia Sultana
1236-1240

Muiz ud din Bahram
1240–1242

Ala ud din Masud
1242–1246

Nasir ud din Mahmud
1246–1266

Ghiyas ud din Balban
1266–1287

Muiz ud din Qaiqabad
1287–1290

Shamsuddin Kayumars
1290

Khalji dynasty[show]

Jalaluddin Firuz Khalji
1290–1296

Alauddin Khalji
1296–1316

Shihabuddin Omar
1316

Qutbuddin Mubarak Shah
1316–1320

Khusro Khan
1320

Tughlaq dynasty[show]

Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq
1320–1325

Muhammad bin Tughluq
1325–1351

Firuz Shah Tughlaq
1351–1388

Tughluq Khan
1388–1389

Abu Bakr Shah
1389–1390

Nasir ud din Muhammad Shah III
1390–1393

Ala ud-din Sikandar Shah
1393

Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq
1394–1412/1413

Nasir-ud-din Nusrat Shah Tughluq
1394–1398

Sayyid dynasty[show]

Khizr Khan
1414–1421

Mubarak Shah
1421–1434

Muhammad Shah
1434–1445

Alam Shah
1445–1451

Lodi dynasty[show]

Bahlul Khan Lodi
1451–1489

Sikandar Lodi
1489–1517

Ibrahim Lodi
1517–1526

v
t
e

tag: table

text: Mamluk / Slave[edit]

text: Qutb al-Din Aibak, a former slave of Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori (known more commonly as Muhammad of Ghor), was the first ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. Aibak was of Cuman-Kipchak (Turkic) origin, and due to his lineage, his dynasty is known as the Mamluk (Slave) dynasty (not to be confused with the Mamluk dynasty of Iraq or the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt).[31] Aibak reigned as the Sultan of Delhi for four years, from 1206 to 1210.

text: After Aibak died, Aram Shah assumed power in 1210, but he was assassinated in 1211 by Shams ud-Din Iltutmish.[32] Iltutmish's power was precarious, and a number of Muslim amirs (nobles) challenged his authority as they had been supporters of Qutb al-Din Aibak. After a series of conquests and brutal executions of opposition, Iltutmish consolidated his power.[33] His rule was challenged a number of times, such as by Qubacha, and this led to a series of wars.[34] Iltumish conquered Multan and Bengal from contesting Muslim rulers, as well as Ranthambore and Siwalik from the Hindu rulers. He also attacked, defeated, and executed Taj al-Din Yildiz, who asserted his rights as heir to Mu'izz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori.[35] Iltutmish's rule lasted till 1236. Following his death, the Delhi Sultanate saw a succession of weak rulers, disputing Muslim nobility, assassinations, and short-lived tenures. Power shifted from Rukn ud-Din Firuz to Razia Sultana and others, until Ghiyas ud-Din Balban came to power and ruled from 1266 to 1287.[34][35] He was succeeded by 17-year-old Muiz ud-Din Qaiqabad, who appointed Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji as the commander of the army. Khalji assassinated Qaiqabad and assumed power, thus ending the Mamluk dynasty and starting the Khalji dynasty.

text: Qutb al-Din Aibak initiated the construction of the Qutub Minar[36] and the Quwwat-ul-Islam (Might of Islam) Mosque, now a UNESCO world heritage site.[37] It was built from the remains of twenty seven demolished Hindu and Jain temples. The Qutub Minar Complex or Qutb Complex was expanded by Iltutmish, and later by Ala ud-Din Khalji (the second ruler of the Khalji dynasty) in the early 14th century.[37][38] During the Mamluk dynasty, many nobles from Afghanistan and Persia migrated and settled in India, as West Asia came under Mongol siege.[39]

text: Khalji[edit]

text: The Khalji dynasty was of Turko-Afghan heritage.[40][41][42][43] They trace their roots to Central Asia and were originally of Turkic origin.[44] They had long been settled in present-day Afghanistan before proceeding to Delhi in India. The name "Khalji" refers to an Afghan village or town known as Qalat-e Khalji (Fort of Ghilji).[45] Sometimes they were treated by others as ethnic Afghans due to their adoption of Afghan habits and customs.[46][47] As a result of this, the dynasty is sometimes referred to as Turko-Afghan.[41][42][43] The dynasty later also had Indian ancestry, through Jhatyapali (daughter of Ramachandra of Devagiri), wife of Alauddin Khalji and mother of Shihabuddin Omar.[48]

text: The first ruler of the Khalji dynasty was Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji. He came to power in 1290 after killing the last ruler of the Mamluk dynasty, Muiz ud-Din Qaiqabad, at the behest of Turkic, Afghan and Persian nobles. He was around 70 years old at the time of his ascension, and was known as a mild-mannered, humble and kind monarch to the general public.[49][50] Jalal ud-Din Firuz was of Turkic origin, and ruled for 6 years before he was murdered in 1296 by his nephew and son-in-law Juna Muhammad Khalji,[51] who later came to be known as Ala ud-Din Khalji.

text: Ala ud-Din began his military career as governor of Kara province, from where he led two raids on Malwa (1292) and Devagiri (1294) for plunder and loot. His military campaigning returned to these lands as well other south Indian kingdoms after he assumed power. He conquered Gujarat, Ranthambore, Chittor, and Malwa.[52] However, these victories were cut short because of Mongol attacks and plunder raids from the northwest. The Mongols withdrew after plundering and stopped raiding northwest parts of the Delhi Sultanate.[53]

text: After the Mongols withdrew, Ala ud-Din Khalji continued expanding the Delhi Sultanate into southern India with the help of generals such as Malik Kafur and Khusro Khan. They collected lots of war booty (anwatan) from those they defeated.[54] His commanders collected war spoils and paid ghanima (Arabic: الْغَنيمَة, a tax on spoils of war), which helped strengthen the Khalji rule. Among the spoils was the Warangal loot that included one of the largest known diamonds in human history, the Koh-i-noor.[55]

text: Ala ud-Din Khalji changed tax policies, raising agriculture taxes from 20% to 50% (payable in grain and agricultural produce), eliminating payments and commissions on taxes collected by local chiefs, banned socialization among his officials as well as inter-marriage between noble families to help prevent any opposition forming against him, and he cut salaries of officials, poets, and scholars.[51] These tax policies and spending controls strengthened his treasury to pay the keep of his growing army; he also introduced price controls on all agriculture produce and goods in the kingdom, as well as controls on where, how, and by whom these goods could be sold. Markets called "shahana-i-mandi" were created.[56] Muslim merchants were granted exclusive permits and monopoly in these "mandis" to buy and resell at official prices. No one other than these merchants could buy from farmers or sell in cities. Those found violating these "mandi" rules were severely punished, often by mutilation. Taxes collected in the form of grain were stored in the kingdom's storage. During famines that followed, these granaries ensured sufficient food for the army.[51]

text: Historians note Ala ud-Din Khalji as being a tyrant. Anyone Ala ud-Din suspected of being a threat to this power was killed along with the women and children of that family. In 1298, between 15,000 and 30,000 people near Delhi, who had recently converted to Islam, were slaughtered in a single day, due to fears of an uprising.[57] He is also known for his cruelty against kingdoms he defeated in battle.

text: After Ala ud-Din's death in 1316, his eunuch general Malik Kafur, who was born in a Hindu family in India and had converted to Islam, tried to assume power. He lacked the support of Persian and Turkic nobility and was subsequently killed.[51] The last Khalji ruler was Ala ud-Din Khalji's 18-year-old son Qutb ud-Din Mubarak Shah Khalji, who ruled for four years before he was killed by Khusro Khan, another of Ala ud-Din's generals. Khusro Khan's reign lasted only a few months, when Ghazi Malik, later to be called Ghiyath al-Din Tughlaq, killed him and assumed power in 1320, thus ending the Khalji dynasty and starting the Tughlaq dynasty.[39][57]

text: Tughlaq[edit]

text: The Tughlaq dynasty lasted from 1320 to nearly the end of the 14th century. The first ruler Ghazi Malik rechristened himself as Ghiyath al-Din Tughlaq and is also referred to in scholarly works as Tughlak Shah. He was of Turko-Indian origins; his father was a Turkic slave and his mother was a Hindu.[1] Ghiyath al-Din ruled for five years and built a town near Delhi named Tughlaqabad.[citation needed] According to some historians such as Vincent Smith,[58] he was killed by his son Juna Khan, who then assumed power in 1325. Juna Khan rechristened himself as Muhammad bin Tughlaq and ruled for 26 years.[59] During his rule, Delhi Sultanate reached its peak in terms of geographical reach, covering most of the Indian subcontinent.[10]

text: Muhammad bin Tughlaq was an intellectual, with extensive knowledge of the Quran, Fiqh, poetry and other fields. He was also deeply suspicious of his kinsmen and wazirs (ministers), extremely severe with his opponents, and took decisions that caused economic upheaval. For example, he ordered minting of coins from base metals with face value of silver coins - a decision that failed because ordinary people minted counterfeit coins from base metal they had in their houses and used them to pay taxes and jizya.[10][58]

text: On another occasion, after becoming upset by some accounts, or to run the Sultanate from the center of India by other accounts, Muhammad bin Tughlaq ordered the transfer of his capital from Delhi to Devagiri in modern-day Maharashtra (renaming it to Daulatabad), by forcing the mass migration of Delhi's population. Those who refused were killed. One blind person who failed to move to Daulatabad was dragged for the entire journey of 40 days - the man died, his body fell apart, and only his tied leg reached Daulatabad.[58] The capital move failed because Daulatabad was arid and did not have enough drinking water to support the new capital. The capital then returned to Delhi. Nevertheless, Muhammad bin Tughlaq's orders affected history as a large number of Delhi Muslims who came to the Deccan area did not return to Delhi to live near Muhammad bin Tughlaq. This influx of the then-Delhi residents into the Deccan region led to a growth of Muslim population in central and southern India.[10] Muhammad bin Tughlaq's adventures in the Deccan region also marked campaigns of destruction and desecration of Hindu and Jain temples, for example the Swayambhu Shiva Temple and the Thousand Pillar Temple.[60]

text: Revolts against Muhammad bin Tughlaq began in 1327, continued over his reign, and over time the geographical reach of the Sultanate shrunk. The Vijayanagara Empire originated in southern India as a direct response to attacks from the Delhi Sultanate.,[61] and liberated south India from the Delhi Sultanate's rule.[62] In 1337, Muhammad bin Tughlaq ordered an attack on China,[citation needed] sending part of his forces over the Himalayas. Few survived the journey, and they were executed upon their return for failing.[58] During his reign, state revenues collapsed from his policies such as the base metal coins from 1329-1332. To cover state expenses, he sharply raised taxes. Those who failed to pay taxes were hunted and executed. Famines, widespread poverty, and rebellion grew across the kingdom. In 1338 his own nephew rebelled in Malwa, whom he attacked, caught, and flayed alive.[citation needed] By 1339, the eastern regions under local Muslim governors and southern parts led by Hindu kings had revolted and declared independence from the Delhi Sultanate. Muhammad bin Tughlaq did not have the resources or support to respond to the shrinking kingdom.[63] The historian Walford chronicled Delhi and most of India faced severe famines during Muhammad bin Tughlaq's rule in the years after the base metal coin experiment.[64][65] By 1347, the Bahmani Sultanate had become an independent and competing Muslim kingdom in Deccan region of South Asia.[21]

text: Muhammad bin Tughlaq died in 1351 while trying to chase and punish people in Gujarat who were rebelling against the Delhi Sultanate.[63] He was succeeded by Firuz Shah Tughlaq (1351–1388), who tried to regain the old kingdom boundary by waging a war with Bengal for 11 months in 1359. However, Bengal did not fall. Firuz Shah ruled for 37 years. His reign attempted to stabilize the food supply and reduce famines by commissioning an irrigation canal from the Yamuna river. An educated sultan, Firuz Shah left a memoir.[69] In it he wrote that he banned the practice of torture, such as amputations, tearing out of eyes, sawing people alive, crushing people's bones as punishment, pouring molten lead into throats, setting people on fire, driving nails into hands and feet, among others.[70] He also wrote that he did not tolerate attempts by Rafawiz Shia Muslim and Mahdi sects from proselytizing people into their faith, nor did he tolerate Hindus who tried to rebuild temples that his armies had destroyed.[71] As punishment for proselytizing, Firuz Shah put many Shias, Mahdi, and Hindus to death (siyasat). Firuz Shah Tughlaq also lists his accomplishments to include converting Hindus to Sunni Islam by announcing an exemption from taxes and jizya for those who convert, and by lavishing new converts with presents and honours. Simultaneously, he raised taxes and jizya, assessing it at three levels, and stopping the practice of his predecessors who had historically exempted all Hindu Brahmins from the jizya.[70][72] He also vastly expanded the number of slaves in his service and those of Muslim nobles. The reign of Firuz Shah Tughlaq was marked by reduction in extreme forms of torture, eliminating favours to select parts of society, but also increased intolerance and persecution of targeted groups.[70]

text: The death of Firuz Shah Tughlaq created anarchy and disintegration of the kingdom. The last rulers of this dynasty both called themselves Sultan from 1394 to 1397: Nasir ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughlaq, the grandson of Firuz Shah Tughlaq who ruled from Delhi, and Nasir ud-Din Nusrat Shah Tughlaq, another relative of Firuz Shah Tughlaq who ruled from Firozabad, which was a few miles from Delhi.[73] The battle between the two relatives continued till Timur's invasion in 1398. Timur, also known as Tamerlane in Western scholarly literature, was the Turkic ruler of the Timurid Empire. He became aware of the weakness and quarreling of the rulers of the Delhi Sultanate, so he marched with his army to Delhi, plundering and killing all the way.[74][75] Estimates for the massacre by Timur in Dehli range from 100,000 to 200,000 people.[76][77] Timur had no intention of staying in or ruling India. He looted the lands he crossed, then plundered and burnt Delhi. Over five days, Timur and his army raged a massacre.[citation needed] Then he collected and carried the wealth, captured women and slaves (particularly skilled artisans), and returned to Samarkand. The people and lands within the Delhi Sultanate were left in a state of anarchy, chaos, and pestilence.[73] Nasir ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughlaq, who had fled to Gujarat during Timur's invasion, returned and nominally ruled as the last ruler of Tughlaq dynasty, as a puppet of various factions at the court.[78][citation needed]

text: Sayyid[edit]

text: The Sayyid dynasty was a Turkic dynasty[79] that ruled the Delhi Sultanate from 1415 to 1451.[21] The Timurid invasion and plunder had left the Delhi Sultanate in shambles, and little is known about the rule by the Sayyid dynasty. Annemarie Schimmel notes the first ruler of the dynasty as Khizr Khan, who assumed power by claiming to represent Timur. His authority was questioned even by those near Delhi. His successor was Mubarak Khan, who rechristened himself as Mubarak Shah and tried to regain lost territories in Punjab, unsuccessfully.[78]

text: With the power of the Sayyid dynasty faltering, Islam's history on the Indian subcontinent underwent a profound change, according to Schimmel.[78] The previously dominant Sunni sect of Islam became diluted, alternate Muslim sects such as Shia rose, and new competing centers of Islamic culture took roots beyond Delhi.

text: The Sayyid dynasty was displaced by the Lodi dynasty in 1451.

text: Lodi[edit]

text: The Lodi dynasty belonged to the Pashtun[80] (Afghan) Lodi tribe.[79] Bahlul Khan Lodi started the Lodi dynasty and was the first Pashtun, to rule the Delhi Sultanate.[81] Bahlul Lodi began his reign by attacking the Muslim Jaunpur Sultanate to expand the influence of the Delhi Sultanate, and was partially successful through a treaty. Thereafter, the region from Delhi to Varanasi (then at the border of Bengal province), was back under influence of Delhi Sultanate.

text: After Bahlul Lodi died, his son Nizam Khan assumed power, rechristened himself as Sikandar Lodi and ruled from 1489 to 1517.[82] One of the better known rulers of the dynasty, Sikandar Lodi expelled his brother Barbak Shah from Jaunpur, installed his son Jalal Khan as the ruler, then proceeded east to make claims on Bihar. The Muslim governors of Bihar agreed to pay tribute and taxes, but operated independent of the Delhi Sultanate. Sikandar Lodi led a campaign of destruction of temples, particularly around Mathura. He also moved his capital and court from Delhi to Agra,[83][citation needed] an ancient Hindu city that had been destroyed during the plunder and attacks of the early Delhi Sultanate period. Sikandar thus erected buildings with Indo-Islamic architecture in Agra during his rule, and the growth of Agra continued during the Mughal Empire, after the end of Delhi Sultanate.[81][84]

text: Sikandar Lodi died a natural death in 1517, and his second son Ibrahim Lodi assumed power. Ibrahim did not enjoy the support of Afghan and Persian nobles or regional chiefs.[85] Ibrahim attacked and killed his elder brother Jalal Khan, who was installed as the governor of Jaunpur by his father and had the support of the amirs and chiefs.[81] Ibrahim Lodi was unable to consolidate his power, and after Jalal Khan's death, the governor of Punjab, Daulat Khan Lodi, reached out to the Mughal Babur and invited him to attack Delhi Sultanate.[83] Babur defeated and killed Ibrahim Lodi in the Battle of Panipat in 1526. The death of Ibrahim Lodi ended the Delhi Sultanate, and the Mughal Empire replaced it.

text: Economy[edit]

text: Before and during the Delhi Sultanate, Islamic civilization was the most cosmopolitan civilization of the Middle Ages. It had a multicultural and pluralistic society, and wide-ranging international networks, including social and economic networks, spanning large parts of Afro-Eurasia, leading to escalating circulation of goods, peoples, technologies and ideas. While initially disruptive due to the passing of power from native Indian elites to Turkic Muslim elites, the Delhi Sultanate was responsible for integrating the Indian subcontinent into a growing world system, drawing India into a wider international network, which led to cultural and social enrichment in the Indian subcontinent.[13]

text: During the Middle Kingdoms era from 1 CE to 1000 CE, the Indian economy was stagnant with no GDP growth for a thousand years, remaining static at $33.75 billion. During the Medieval Delhi Sultanate era, between 1000 and 1500, India began to experience GDP growth for the first time in a thousand years, increasing by nearly 80% up to $60.5 billion in 1500.[16] In terms of GDP per capita, India's per-capita income was lower than the Middle East from 1 CE (16% lower) to 1000 CE (about 40% lower), but by the late Delhi Sultanate era in 1500, India's GDP per capita had increased to being almost on-par with the Middle East.[86]

text: The worm gear roller cotton gin was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th–14th centuries,[87] and is still used in India through to the present day.[88] Another innovation, the incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared in the Indian subcontinent some time during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire.[89] The production of cotton, which may have largely been spun in the villages and then taken to towns in the form of yarn to be woven into cloth textiles, was advanced by the diffusion of the spinning wheel across India during the Delhi Sultanate era, lowering the costs of yarn and helping to increase demand for cotton. The diffusion of the spinning wheel, and the incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin, led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production.[90]

text: Demographics[edit]

text: The Indian population had largely been stagnant at 75 million during the Middle Kingdoms era from 1 AD to 1000 AD. During the Medieval Delhi Sultanate era from 1000 to 1500, India experienced lasting population growth for the first time in a thousand years, with its population increasing nearly 50% to 110 million by 1500 AD.[91][92]

text: Culture[edit]

text: While the Indian subcontinent has had invaders from Central Asia since ancient times, what made the Muslim invasions different is that unlike the preceding invaders who assimilated into the prevalent social system, the successful Muslim conquerors retained their Islamic identity and created new legal and administrative systems that challenged and usually in many cases superseded the existing systems of social conduct and ethics, even influencing the non-Muslim rivals and common masses to a large extent, though the non-Muslim population was left to their own laws and customs.[93][94] They also introduced new cultural codes that in some ways were very different from the existing cultural codes. This led to the rise of a new Indian culture which was mixed in nature, different from ancient Indian culture. The overwhelming majority of Muslims in India were Indian natives converted to Islam. This factor also played an important role in the synthesis of cultures.[95]

text: The Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu) began to emerge in the Delhi Sultanate period, developed from the Middle Indo-Aryan apabhramsha vernaculars of North India. Amir Khusro, who lived in the 13th century CE during the Delhi Sultanate period in North India, used a form of Hindustani, which was the lingua franca of the period, in his writings and referred to it as Hindavi.[17]

text: Military[edit]

text: The bulk of Delhi Sultanate's army consisted of nomadic Turkic Mamluk military slaves, who were skilled in nomadic cavalry warfare. A major military contribution of the Delhi Sultanate was their successful campaigns in repelling the Mongol Empire's invasions of India, which could have been devastating for the Indian subcontinent, like the Mongol invasions of China, Persia and Europe. The Delhi Sultanate's Mamluk army were skilled in the same style of nomadic cavalry warfare used by the Mongols, making them successful in repelling the Mongol invasions, as was the case for the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Were it not for the Delhi Sultanate, it is possible that the Mongol Empire may have been successful in invading India.[18]

text: Temple desecration[edit]

text: Historian Richard Eaton has tabulated a campaign of destruction of idols and temples by Delhi Sultans, intermixed with instances of years where the temples were protected from desecration.[19][97][98] In his paper, he has listed 37 instances of Hindu temples being desecrated or destroyed in India during the Delhi Sultanate, from 1234 to 1518, for which reasonable evidences are available.[99][100][101] He also noted there were also many instances of Delhi sultans, who often had Hindu ministers, ordering the protection, maintenance and repairing of temples, according to both Muslim and Hindu sources. For example, a Sanskrit inscription notes that Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq repaired a Siva temple in Bidar after his Deccan conquest. There was often a pattern of Delhi sultans plundering or damaging temples during conquest, and then patronizing or repairing temples after conquest. This pattern came to an end with the Mughal Empire, where Akbar the Great's chief minister Abu'l-Fazl criticized the excesses of earlier sultans such as Mahmud of Ghazni.[102]

text: In many cases, the demolished remains, rocks and broken statue pieces of temples destroyed by Delhi sultans were reused to build mosques and other buildings. For example, the Qutb complex in Delhi was built from stones of 27 demolished Hindu and Jain temples by some accounts.[103] Similarly, the Muslim mosque in Khanapur, Maharashtra was built from the looted parts and demolished remains of Hindu temples.[39] Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji destroyed Buddhist and Hindu libraries and their manuscripts at Nalanda and Odantapuri Universities in 1193 AD at the beginning of the Delhi Sultanate.[60][104]

text: The first historical record of a campaign of destruction of temples and defacement of faces or heads of Hindu idols lasted from 1193 through the early 13th century in Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh under the command of Ghuri. Under the Khaljis, the campaign of temple desecration expanded to Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra, and continued through the late 13th century.[19] The campaign extended to Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu under Malik Kafur and Ulugh Khan in the 14th century, and by the Bahmanis in 15th century.[60] Orissa temples were destroyed in the 14th century under the Tughlaqs.

text: Beyond destruction and desecration, the sultans of the Delhi Sultanate in some cases had forbidden reconstruction of damaged Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples, and they prohibited repairs of old temples or construction of any new temples.[105][106] In certain cases, the Sultanate would grant a permit for repairs and construction of temples if the patron or religious community paid jizya (fee, tax). For example, a proposal by the Chinese to repair Himalayan Buddhist temples destroyed by the Sultanate army was refused, on the grounds that such temple repairs were only allowed if the Chinese agreed to pay jizya tax to the treasury of the Sultanate.[107][108] In his memoirs, Firoz Shah Tughlaq describes how he destroyed temples and built mosques instead and killed those who dared build new temples.[109] Other historical records from wazirs, amirs and the court historians of various Sultans of the Delhi Sultanate describe the grandeur of idols and temples they witnessed in their campaigns and how these were destroyed and desecrated.[110]

text:
Temple desecration during Delhi Sultanate period, a list prepared by Richard Eaton in Temple Desecration and Indo-Muslim States[19][111]

Sultan / Agent
Dynasty
Years
Temple Sites Destroyed
States

Muhammad Ghori, Qutb al-Din Aibak
Mamluk
1193-1290
Ajmer, Samana, Kuhram, Delhi, Kol, Varanasi
Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh

Muhammad bin Bakhtiyar Khalji, Shams ud-Din Iltumish, Jalal ud-Din Firuz Khalji, Ala ud-Din Khalji, Malik Kafur
Mamluk and Khalji
1290-1320
Nalanda, Odantapuri, Vikramashila, Bhilsa, Ujjain, Jhain, Vijapur, Devagiri, Somnath, Chidambaram, Madurai
Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu

Ulugh Khan, Firuz Shah Tughlaq, Nahar, Muzaffar Khan
Khalji and Tughlaq
1320-1395[112]
Somnath, Warangal, Bodhan, Pillalamarri, Puri, Sainthali, Idar, Somnath[113]
Gujarat, Telangana, Orissa, Haryana

Sikandar, Muzaffar Shah, Ahmad Shah, Mahmud
Sayyid
1400-1442
Paraspur, Bijbehara, Tripuresvara, Idar, Diu, Manvi, Sidhpur, Delwara, Kumbhalmer
Gujarat, Rajasthan

Suhrab, Begdha, Bahmani, Khalil Shah, Khawwas Khan, Sikandar Lodi, Ibrahim Lodi
Lodi
1457-1518
Mandalgarh, Malan, Dwarka, Kondapalle, Kanchi, Amod, Nagarkot, Utgir, Narwar, Gwalior
Rajasthan, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh


document_title: Large Hadron Collider

question_text: when is the large hadron collider being turned on

question_tokens: when is the large hadron collider being turned on

text: Large Hadron Collider

text: Background[edit]

text: The term hadron refers to composite particles composed of quarks held together by the strong force (as atoms and molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force).[17] The best-known hadrons are the baryons such as protons and neutrons; hadrons also include mesons such as the pion and kaon, which were discovered during cosmic ray experiments in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[18]

text: A collider is a type of a particle accelerator with two directed beams of particles. In particle physics, colliders are used as a research tool: they accelerate particles to very high kinetic energies and let them impact other particles.[19] Analysis of the byproducts of these collisions gives scientists good evidence of the structure of the subatomic world and the laws of nature governing it. Many of these byproducts are produced only by high-energy collisions, and they decay after very short periods of time. Thus many of them are hard or nearly impossible to study in other ways.[20]

text: Purpose[edit]

text: Physicists hope that the Large Hadron Collider will help answer some of the fundamental open questions in physics, concerning the basic laws governing the interactions and forces among the elementary objects, the deep structure of space and time, and in particular the interrelation between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

text: Data is also needed from high-energy particle experiments to suggest which versions of current scientific models are more likely to be correct – in particular to choose between the Standard Model and Higgsless model and to validate their predictions and allow further theoretical development. Many theorists expect new physics beyond the Standard Model to emerge at the TeV energy level, as the Standard Model appears to be unsatisfactory. Issues explored by LHC collisions include:[21][22]

text:
is the mass of elementary particles being generated by the Higgs mechanism via electroweak symmetry breaking?[23] It was expected that the collider experiments will either demonstrate or rule out the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, thereby allowing physicists to consider whether the Standard Model or its Higgsless alternatives are more likely to be correct.[24][25][26] The ATLAS and CMS experiments discovered the Higgs boson, which is strong evidence that the Standard Model has the correct mechanism of giving mass to elementary particles.
is supersymmetry, an extension of the Standard Model and Poincaré symmetry, realized in nature, implying that all known particles have supersymmetric partners?[27][28][29]
Are there extra dimensions,[30] as predicted by various models based on string theory, and can we detect them?[31]
What is the nature of the dark matter that appears to account for 27% of the mass-energy of the universe?

tag: ul

text: Other open questions that may be explored using high-energy particle collisions:

text:
It is already known that electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force are different manifestations of a single force called the electroweak force. The LHC may clarify whether the electroweak force and the strong nuclear force are similarly just different manifestations of one universal unified force, as predicted by various Grand Unification Theories.
Why is the fourth fundamental force (gravity) so many orders of magnitude weaker than the other three fundamental forces? See also Hierarchy problem.
Are there additional sources of quark flavour mixing, beyond those already present within the Standard Model?
Why are there apparent violations of the symmetry between matter and antimatter? See also CP violation.
What are the nature and properties of quark–gluon plasma, thought to have existed in the early universe and in certain compact and strange astronomical objects today? This will be investigated by heavy ion collisions, mainly in ALICE, but also in CMS, ATLAS and LHCb. First observed in 2010, findings published in 2012 confirmed the phenomenon of jet quenching in heavy-ion collisions.[32][33][34]

text: Design[edit]

text: The LHC is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.[35][36] The collider is contained in a circular tunnel, with a circumference of 27 kilometres (17 mi), at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres (164 to 574 ft) underground.

text: The 3.8-metre (12 ft) wide concrete-lined tunnel, constructed between 1983 and 1988, was formerly used to house the Large Electron–Positron Collider.[37] It crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, with most of it in France. Surface buildings hold ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.

text: The collider tunnel contains two adjacent parallel beamlines (or beam pipes) each containing a beam, which travel in opposite directions around the ring. The beams intersect at four points around the ring, which is where the particle collisions take place. Some 1,232 dipole magnets keep the beams on their circular path (see image[38]), while an additional 392 quadrupole magnets are used to keep the beams focused, with stronger quadrupole magnets close to the intersection points in order to maximize the chances of interaction where the two beams cross. Magnets of higher multipole orders are used to correct smaller imperfections in the field geometry. In total, about 10,000 superconducting magnets are installed, with the dipole magnets having a mass of over 27 tonnes.[39] Approximately 96 tonnes of superfluid helium-4 is needed to keep the magnets, made of copper-clad niobium-titanium, at their operating temperature of 1.9 K (−271.25 °C), making the LHC the largest cryogenic facility in the world at liquid helium temperature.

text: When running at the current energy record of 6.5 TeV per proton,[40] once or twice a day, as the protons are accelerated from 450 GeV to 6.5 TeV, the field of the superconducting dipole magnets will be increased from 0.54 to 7.7 teslas (T). The protons each have an energy of 6.5 TeV, giving a total collision energy of 13 TeV. At this energy the protons have a Lorentz factor of about 6,930 and move at about 0.999999990 c, or about 3.1 m/s (11 km/h) slower than the speed of light (c). It takes less than 90 microseconds (μs) for a proton to travel once around the main ring – a speed of about 11,000 revolutions per second. Rather than having continuous beams, the protons are bunched together, into up to 2,808 bunches, with 115 billion protons in each bunch so that interactions between the two beams take place at discrete intervals, mainly 25 nanoseconds (ns) apart, providing a bunch collision rate of 40 MHz. It was operated with fewer bunches in the first years. The design luminosity of the LHC is 1034 cm−2s−1,[41] which was first reached in June 2016.[42]

text: Prior to being injected into the main accelerator, the particles are prepared by a series of systems that successively increase their energy. The first system is the linear particle accelerator LINAC 2 generating 50-MeV protons, which feeds the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB). There the protons are accelerated to 1.4 GeV and injected into the Proton Synchrotron (PS), where they are accelerated to 26 GeV. Finally the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is used to further increase their energy to 450 GeV before they are at last injected (over a period of several minutes) into the main ring. Here the proton bunches are accumulated, accelerated (over a period of 20 minutes) to their peak energy, and finally circulated for 5 to 24 hours while collisions occur at the four intersection points.[43]

text: The LHC physics programme is mainly based on proton–proton collisions. However, shorter running periods, typically one month per year, with heavy-ion collisions are included in the programme. While lighter ions are considered as well, the baseline scheme deals with lead ions[44] (see A Large Ion Collider Experiment). The lead ions are first accelerated by the linear accelerator LINAC 3, and the Low Energy Ion Ring (LEIR) is used as an ion storage and cooler unit. The ions are then further accelerated by the PS and SPS before being injected into LHC ring, where they reached an energy of 2.3 TeV per nucleon (or 522 TeV per ion),[45] higher than the energies reached by the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The aim of the heavy-ion programme is to investigate quark–gluon plasma, which existed in the early universe.

text: Detectors[edit]

text: Seven detectors have been constructed at the LHC, located underground in large caverns excavated at the LHC's intersection points. Two of them, the ATLAS experiment and the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), are large, general purpose particle detectors.[36] ALICE and LHCb have more specific roles and the last three, TOTEM, MoEDAL and LHCf, are very much smaller and are for very specialized research. The BBC's summary of the main detectors is:[46]

text:
Detector
Description

ATLAS
One of two general purpose detectors. ATLAS studies the Higgs boson and looks for signs of new physics, including the origins of mass and extra dimensions.

CMS
The other general purpose detector, like ATLAS, studies the Higgs boson and look for clues of new physics.

ALICE
ALICE is studying a "fluid" form of matter called quark–gluon plasma that existed shortly after the Big Bang.

LHCb
Equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created in the Big Bang. LHCb investigates what happened to the "missing" antimatter.

text: Computing and analysis facilities[edit]

text: Data produced by LHC, as well as LHC-related simulation, was estimated at approximately 15 petabytes per year (max throughput while running not stated)[47] - a major challenge in its own right at the time.

text: The LHC Computing Grid[48] was constructed as part of the LHC design, to handle the massive amounts of data expected for its collisions. It is an international collaborative project that consists of a grid-based computer network infrastructure initially connecting 140 computing centres in 35 countries (over 170 in 36 countries as of 2012). It was designed by CERN to handle the significant volume of data produced by LHC experiments,[12][13] incorporating both private fibre optic cable links and existing high-speed portions of the public Internet to enable data transfer from CERN to academic institutions around the world.[49] The Open Science Grid is used as the primary infrastructure in the United States, and also as part of an interoperable federation with the LHC Computing Grid.

text: The distributed computing project LHC@home was started to support the construction and calibration of the LHC. The project uses the BOINC platform, enabling anybody with an Internet connection and a computer running Mac OS X, Windows or Linux, to use their computer's idle time to simulate how particles will travel in the beam pipes. With this information, the scientists are able to determine how the magnets should be calibrated to gain the most stable "orbit" of the beams in the ring.[50] In August 2011, a second application went live (Test4Theory) which performs simulations against which to compare actual test data, to determine confidence levels of the results.

text: By 2012 data from over 6 quadrillion (6 x 1015) LHC proton-proton collisions had been analysed,[51] LHC collision data was being produced at approximately 25 petabytes per year, and the LHC Computing Grid had become the world's largest computing grid (as of 2012), comprising over 170 computing facilities in a worldwide network across 36 countries.[14][15][16]

text: Operational history[edit]

text: The LHC first went live on 10 September 2008,[52] but initial testing was delayed for 14 months from 19 September 2008 to 20 November 2009, following a magnet quench incident that caused extensive damage to over 50 superconducting magnets, their mountings, and the vacuum pipe.[53][54][55][56][57]

text: During its first run (2010–2013) the LHC collided two opposing particle beams of either protons at up to 4 teraelectronvolts (4 TeV or 0.64 microjoules), or lead nuclei (574 TeV per nucleus, or 2.76 TeV per nucleon).[35][58] Its first run discoveries included the long sought Higgs boson, several composite particles (hadrons) like the χb (3P) bottomonium state, the first creation of a quark–gluon plasma, and the first observations of the very rare decay of the Bs meson into two muons (Bs0 → μ+μ−), which challenged the validity of existing models of supersymmetry.[59]

text: Construction[edit]

text: Operational challenges[edit]

text: The size of the LHC constitutes an exceptional engineering challenge with unique operational issues on account of the amount of energy stored in the magnets and the beams.[43][60] While operating, the total energy stored in the magnets is 10 GJ (2,400 kilograms of TNT) and the total energy carried by the two beams reaches 724 MJ (173 kilograms of TNT).[61]

text: Loss of only one ten-millionth part (10−7) of the beam is sufficient to quench a superconducting magnet, while each of the two beam dumps must absorb 362 MJ (87 kilograms of TNT). These energies are carried by very little matter: under nominal operating conditions (2,808 bunches per beam, 1.15×1011 protons per bunch), the beam pipes contain 1.0×10−9 gram of hydrogen, which, in standard conditions for temperature and pressure, would fill the volume of one grain of fine sand.

text: Cost[edit]

text: With a budget of €7.5 billion (approx. $9bn or £6.19bn as of June 2010), the LHC is one of the most expensive scientific instruments[62] ever built.[63] The total cost of the project is expected to be of the order of 4.6bn Swiss francs (SFr) (approx. $4.4bn, €3.1bn, or £2.8bn as of Jan 2010) for the accelerator and 1.16bn (SFr) (approx. $1.1bn, €0.8bn, or £0.7bn as of Jan 2010) for the CERN contribution to the experiments.[64]

text: The construction of LHC was approved in 1995 with a budget of SFr 2.6bn, with another SFr 210M towards the experiments. However, cost overruns, estimated in a major review in 2001 at around SFr 480M for the accelerator, and SFr 50M for the experiments, along with a reduction in CERN's budget, pushed the completion date from 2005 to April 2007.[65] The superconducting magnets were responsible for SFr 180M of the cost increase. There were also further costs and delays due to engineering difficulties encountered while building the underground cavern for the Compact Muon Solenoid,[66] and also due to magnet supports which were insufficiently strongly designed and failed their initial testing (2007) and damage from a magnet quench and liquid helium escape (inaugural testing, 2008) (see: Construction accidents and delays).[67] Due to lower electricity costs during the summer, the LHC normally does not operate over the winter months,[68] although exceptions over the 2009/10 and 2012/2013 winters were made to make up for the 2008 start-up delays and to improve precision of measurements of the new particle discovered in 2012, respectively.

text: Construction accidents and delays[edit]

text:
On 25 October 2005, José Pereira Lages, a technician, was killed in the LHC when a switchgear that was being transported fell on top of him.[69]
On 27 March 2007 a cryogenic magnet support designed and provided by Fermilab and KEK broke during an initial pressure test involving one of the LHC's inner triplet (focusing quadrupole) magnet assemblies. No one was injured. Fermilab director Pier Oddone stated "In this case we are dumbfounded that we missed some very simple balance of forces". This fault had been present in the original design, and remained during four engineering reviews over the following years.[70] Analysis revealed that its design, made as thin as possible for better insulation, was not strong enough to withstand the forces generated during pressure testing. Details are available in a statement from Fermilab, with which CERN is in agreement.[71][72] Repairing the broken magnet and reinforcing the eight identical assemblies used by LHC delayed the startup date, then planned for November 2007.
On 19 September 2008, during initial testing, a faulty electrical connection led to a magnet quench (the sudden loss of a superconducting magnet's superconducting ability due to warming or electric field effects). Six tonnes of supercooled liquid helium—used to cool the magnets—escaped, with sufficient force to break 10-ton magnets nearby from their mountings, and caused considerable damage and contamination of the vacuum tube (see 2008 quench incident); repairs and safety checks caused a delay of around 14 months.[73][74][75]
Two vacuum leaks were found in July 2009, and the start of operations was further postponed to mid-November 2009.[76]

text: Initial lower magnet currents[edit]

text: In both of its runs (2010 to 2012 and 2015), the LHC was initially run at energies below its planned operating energy, and ramped up to just 2 x 4 TeV energy on its first run and 2 x 6.5 TeV on its second run, below the design energy of 2 x 7 TeV. This is because massive superconducting magnets require considerable magnet training to handle the high currents involved without losing their superconducting ability, and the high currents are necessary to allow a high proton energy. The "training" process involves repeatedly running the magnets with lower currents to provoke any quenches or minute movements that may result. It also takes time to cool down magnets to their operating temperature of around 1.9 K (close to absolute zero). Over time the magnet "beds in" and ceases to quench at these lesser currents and can handle the full design current without quenching; CERN media describe the magnets as "shaking out" the unavoidable tiny manufacturing imperfections in their crystals and positions that had initially impaired their ability to handle their planned currents. The magnets over time and with training, gradually become able to handle their full planned currents without quenching.[77][78]

text: Inaugural tests (2008)[edit]

text: The first beam was circulated through the collider on the morning of 10 September 2008.[46] CERN successfully fired the protons around the tunnel in stages, three kilometres at a time. The particles were fired in a clockwise direction into the accelerator and successfully steered around it at 10:28 local time.[52] The LHC successfully completed its major test: after a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen showing the protons travelled the full length of the collider. It took less than one hour to guide the stream of particles around its inaugural circuit.[79] CERN next successfully sent a beam of protons in an anticlockwise direction, taking slightly longer at one and a half hours due to a problem with the cryogenics, with the full circuit being completed at 14:59.

text: Quench incident[edit]

text: Wikinews has related news: CERN says repairs to LHC particle accelerator to cost €16.6 million

text: On 19 September 2008, a magnet quench occurred in about 100 bending magnets in sectors 3 and 4, where an electrical fault led to a loss of approximately six tonnes of liquid helium (the magnets' cryogenic coolant), which was vented into the tunnel. The escaping vapour expanded with explosive force, damaging total 53 superconducting magnets and their mountings, and contaminating the vacuum pipe, which also lost vacuum conditions.[53][54][80]

text: Shortly after the incident CERN reported that the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, and that – due to the time needed to warm up the affected sectors and then cool them back down to operating temperature – it would take at least two months to fix.[81] CERN released an interim technical report[80] and preliminary analysis of the incident on 15 and 16 October 2008 respectively,[82] and a more detailed report on 5 December 2008.[74] The analysis of the incident by CERN confirmed that an electrical fault had indeed been the cause. The faulty electrical connection had led (correctly) to a failsafe power abort of the electrical systems powering the superconducting magnets, but had also caused an electric arc (or discharge) which damaged the integrity of the supercooled helium's enclosure and vacuum insulation, causing the coolant's temperature and pressure to rapidly rise beyond the ability of the safety systems to contain it,[80] and leading to a temperature rise of about 100 degrees Celsius in some of the affected magnets. Energy stored in the superconducting magnets and electrical noise induced in other quench detectors also played a role in the rapid heating. Around two tonnes of liquid helium escaped explosively before detectors triggered an emergency stop, and a further four tonnes leaked at lower pressure in the aftermath.[80] A total of 53 magnets were damaged in the incident and were repaired or replaced during the winter shutdown.[83] This accident was thoroughly discussed in a 22 February 2010 Superconductor Science and Technology article by CERN physicist Lucio Rossi.[84]

text: In the original timeline of the LHC commissioning, the first "modest" high-energy collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 900 GeV were expected to take place before the end of September 2008, and the LHC was expected to be operating at 10 TeV by the end of 2008.[85] However, due to the delay caused by the above-mentioned incident, the collider was not operational until November 2009.[86] Despite the delay, LHC was officially inaugurated on 21 October 2008, in the presence of political leaders, science ministers from CERN's 20 Member States, CERN officials, and members of the worldwide scientific community.[87]

text: Most of 2009 was spent on repairs and reviews from the damage caused by the quench incident, along with two further vacuum leaks identified in July 2009 which pushed the start of operations to November of that year.[76]

text: Run 1: first operational run (2009–2013)[edit]

text: On 20 November 2009, low-energy beams circulated in the tunnel for the first time since the incident, and shortly after, on 30 November, the LHC achieved 1.18 TeV per beam to become the world's highest-energy particle accelerator, beating the Tevatron's previous record of 0.98 TeV per beam held for eight years.[89]

text: The early part of 2010 saw the continued ramp-up of beam in energies and early physics experiments towards 3.5 TeV per beam and on 30 March 2010, LHC set a new record for high-energy collisions by colliding proton beams at a combined energy level of 7 TeV. The attempt was the third that day, after two unsuccessful attempts in which the protons had to be "dumped" from the collider and new beams had to be injected.[90] This also marked the start of the main research programme.

text: The first proton run ended on 4 November 2010. A run with lead ions started on 8 November 2010, and ended on 6 December 2010,[91] allowing the ALICE experiment to study matter under extreme conditions similar to those shortly after the Big Bang.[92]

text: CERN originally planned that the LHC would run through to the end of 2012, with a short break at the end of 2011 to allow for an increase in beam energy from 3.5 to 4 TeV per beam.[4] At the end of 2012 the LHC was planned to get shut down until around 2015 to allow upgrade to a planned beam energy of 7 TeV per beam.[93] In late 2012, in light of the July 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, the shutdown was postponed for some weeks into early 2013, to allow additional data to be obtained prior to shutdown.

text: Upgrade (2013–2015)[edit]

text: The LHC was shut down on 13 February 2013 for its 2-year upgrade, which would touch on many aspects of the LHC: enabling collisions at 14 TeV, enhancing its detectors and pre-accelerators (the Proton Synchrotron and Super Proton Synchrotron), as well as replacing its ventilation system and 100 km of cabling impaired by high-energy collisions from its first run.[94] The upgraded collider began its long start-up and testing process in June 2014, with the Proton Synchrotron Booster starting on 2 June 2014, the final interconnection between magnets completing and the Proton Synchrotron circulating particles on 18 June 2014, and the first section of the main LHC supermagnet system reaching operating temperature of 1.9 K (−271.25 °C), a few days later.[95] Due to the slow progress with "training" the superconducting magnets, it was decided to start the second run with a lower energy of 6.5 TeV per beam, corresponding to a current of 11,000 amperes. The first of the main LHC magnets were reported to have been successfully trained by 9 December 2014, while training the other magnet sectors was finished in March 2015.[96]

text: Run 2: second operational run (2015–2018)[edit]

text: On 5 April 2015, the LHC restarted after a two-year break, during which the electrical connectors between the bending magnets were upgraded to safely handle the current required for 7 TeV per beam (14 TeV).[5][97] However, the bending magnets were only trained to handle up to 6.5 TeV per beam (13 TeV total), which became the operating energy for 2015 to 2017.[98] The energy was first reached on 10 April 2015.[99] The upgrades culminated in colliding protons together with a combined energy of 13 TeV.[100] On 3 June 2015 the LHC started delivering physics data after almost two years offline.[101] In the following months it was used for proton-proton collisions, while in November the machine switched to collisions of lead ions and in December the usual winter shutdown started.

text: In 2016, the machine operators focused on increasing the luminosity for proton-proton collisions. The design value was first reached 29 June,[42] and further improvements increased the collision rate to 40% above the design value.[102] The total number of collisions in 2016 exceeded the number from Run 1 - at a higher energy per collision. The proton-proton run was followed by four weeks of proton-lead collisions.[103]

text: Timeline of operations[edit]

text:
Date
Event

10 Sep 2008
CERN successfully fired the first protons around the entire tunnel circuit in stages.

19 Sep 2008
Magnetic quench occurred in about 100 bending magnets in sectors 3 and 4, causing a loss of approximately 6 tonnes of liquid helium.

30 Sep 2008
First "modest" high-energy collisions planned but postponed due to accident.[39]

16 Oct 2008
CERN released a preliminary analysis of the accident.

21 Oct 2008
Official inauguration.

5 Dec 2008
CERN released detailed analysis.

20 Nov 2009
Low-energy beams circulated in the tunnel for the first time since the accident.[56]

23 Nov 2009
First particle collisions in all four detectors at 450 GeV.

30 Nov 2009
LHC becomes the world's highest-energy particle accelerator achieving 1.18 TeV per beam, beating the Tevatron's previous record of 0.98 TeV per beam held for eight years.[89]

15 Dec 2009
First scientific results, covering 284 collisions in the ALICE detector.[104]

28 Feb 2010
The LHC continues operations ramping energies to run at 3.5 TeV for 18 months to two years, after which it will be shut down to prepare for the 14 TeV collisions (7 TeV per beam).[105]

30 Mar 2010
The two beams collided at 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam) in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research programme.

8 Nov 2010
Start of the first run with lead ions.

6 Dec 2010
End of the run with lead ions. Shutdown until early 2011.

13 Mar 2011
Beginning of the 2011 run with proton beams.[106]

21 Apr 2011
LHC becomes the world's highest-luminosity hadron accelerator achieving a peak luminosity of 4.67·1032 cm−2s−1, beating the Tevatron's previous record of 4·1032 cm−2s−1 held for one year.[107]

24 May 2011
Quark–gluon plasma achieved.[108]

17 Jun 2011
The high-luminosity experiments ATLAS and CMS reach 1 fb−1 of collected data.[109]

14 Oct 2011
LHCb reaches 1 fb−1 of collected data.[110]

23 Oct 2011
The high-luminosity experiments ATLAS and CMS reach 5 fb−1 of collected data.

Nov 2011
Second run with lead ions.

22 Dec 2011
First new composite particle discovery, the χb (3P) bottomonium meson, observed with proton-proton collisions in 2011.[111]

5 Apr 2012
First collisions with stable beams in 2012 after the winter shutdown. The energy is increased to 4 TeV per beam (8 TeV in collisions).[112]

4 Jul 2012
First new elementary particle discovery, a new boson observed that is "consistent with" the theorized Higgs boson. (This has now been confirmed as the Higgs boson itself.[113])

8 Nov 2012
First observation of the very rare decay of the Bs meson into two muons (Bs0 → μ+μ−), a major test of supersymmetry theories,[114] shows results at 3.5 sigma that match the Standard Model rather than many of its super-symmetrical variants.

20 Jan 2013
Start of the first run colliding protons with Lead ions.

11 Feb 2013
End of the first run colliding protons with Lead ions.

14 Feb 2013
Beginning of the first long shutdown, to prepare the collider for a higher energy and luminosity. When reactivated in 2015, the LHC will operate with an energy of 6.5 TeV per proton.[115]

7 Mar 2015
Injection tests for Run 2 send protons towards LHCb & ALICE

5 Apr 2015
Both beams circulated in the collider.[5] Four days later, a new record energy of 6.5 TeV per proton was achieved.[116]

20 May 2015

Protons collided in the LHC at the record-breaking energy of 13 TeV.[100]

3 Jun 2015
Start of delivering the physics data after almost two years offline for re-commissioning.[101]

4 Nov 2015
End of proton collisions in 2015, start of preparations for ion collisions.

25 Nov 2015
First ion collisions at a record-breaking energy of more than 1 PeV (1015 eV)[117]

13 Dec 2015
End of ion collisions in 2015

23 Apr 2016
Data-taking in 2016 begins

29 June 2016
The LHC achieves a luminosity of 1.0 · 1034 cm−2s−1, its design value.[42] Further improvements over the year increased the luminosity to 40% above the design value.[102]

26 Oct 2016
End of 2016 proton-proton collisions

10 Nov 2016
Beginning of 2016 proton-lead collisions

3 Dec 2016
End of 2016 proton-lead collisions

24 May 2017
Start of 2017 proton-proton collisions

text: Findings and discoveries[edit]

text: An initial focus of research was to investigate the possible existence of the Higgs boson, a key part of the Standard Model of physics which is predicted by theory but had not yet been observed before due to its high mass and elusive nature. CERN scientists estimated that, if the Standard Model were correct, the LHC would produce several Higgs bosons every minute, allowing physicists to finally confirm or disprove the Higgs boson's existence. In addition, the LHC allowed the search for supersymmetric particles and other hypothetical particles as possible unknown areas of physics.[35] Some extensions of the Standard Model predict additional particles, such as the heavy W' and Z' gauge bosons, which are also estimated to be within reach of the LHC to discover.[118]

text: First run (data taken 2009–2013)[edit]

text: The first physics results from the LHC, involving 284 collisions which took place in the ALICE detector, were reported on 15 December 2009.[104] The results of the first proton–proton collisions at energies higher than Fermilab's Tevatron proton–antiproton collisions were published by the CMS collaboration in early February 2010, yielding greater-than-predicted charged-hadron production.[119]

text: After the first year of data collection, the LHC experimental collaborations started to release their preliminary results concerning searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model in proton-proton collisions.[120][121][122][123] No evidence of new particles was detected in the 2010 data. As a result, bounds were set on the allowed parameter space of various extensions of the Standard Model, such as models with large extra dimensions, constrained versions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, and others.[124][125][126]

text: On 24 May 2011, it was reported that quark–gluon plasma (the densest matter thought to exist besides black holes) had been created in the LHC.[108]

text: Between July and August 2011, results of searches for the Higgs boson and for exotic particles, based on the data collected during the first half of the 2011 run, were presented in conferences in Grenoble[127] and Mumbai.[128] In the latter conference it was reported that, despite hints of a Higgs signal in earlier data, ATLAS and CMS exclude with 95% confidence level (using the CLs method) the existence of a Higgs boson with the properties predicted by the Standard Model over most of the mass region between 145 and 466 GeV.[129] The searches for new particles did not yield signals either, allowing to further constrain the parameter space of various extensions of the Standard Model, including its supersymmetric extensions.[130][131]

text: On 13 December 2011, CERN reported that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 115–130 GeV. Both the CMS and ATLAS detectors have also shown intensity peaks in the 124–125 GeV range, consistent with either background noise or the observation of the Higgs boson.[132]

text: On 22 December 2011, it was reported that a new composite particle had been observed, the χb (3P) bottomonium state.[111]

text: On 4 July 2012, both the CMS and ATLAS teams announced the discovery of a boson in the mass region around 125–126 GeV, with a statistical significance at the level of 5 sigma each. This meets the formal level required to announce a new particle. The observed properties were consistent with the Higgs boson, but scientists were cautious as to whether it is formally identified as actually being the Higgs boson, pending further analysis.[133]

text: On 8 November 2012, the LHCb team reported on an experiment seen as a "golden" test of supersymmetry theories in physics,[114] by measuring the very rare decay of the Bs meson into two muons (Bs0 → μ+μ−). The results, which match those predicted by the non-supersymmetrical Standard Model rather than the predictions of many branches of supersymmetry, show the decays are less common than some forms of supersymmetry predict, though could still match the predictions of other versions of supersymmetry theory. The results as initially drafted are stated to be short of proof but at a relatively high 3.5 sigma level of significance.[134] The result was later confirmed by the CMS collaboration.[135]

text: In August 2013 the LHCb team revealed an anomaly in the angular distribution of B meson decay products which could not be predicted by the Standard Model; this anomaly had a statistical certainty of 4.5 sigma, just short of the 5 sigma needed to be officially recognized as a discovery. It is unknown what the cause of this anomaly would be, although the Z' boson has been suggested as a possible candidate.[136]

text:
On 19 November 2014, the LHCb experiment announced the discovery of two new heavy subatomic particles, Ξ′−
b and Ξ∗−
b. Both of them are baryons that are composed of one bottom, one down, and one strange quark. They are excited states of the bottom Xi baryon.[137][138]

text:
The LHCb collaboration has observed multiple exotic hadrons, possibly pentaquarks or tetraquarks, in the Run 1 data. On 4 April 2014, the collaboration confirmed the existence of the tetraquark candidate Z(4430) with a significance of over 13.9 sigma.[139][140] On 13 July 2015, results consistent with pentaquark states in the decay of bottom Lambda baryons (Λ0
b) were reported.[141][142][143] On 28 June 2016, the collaboration announced four tetraquark-like particles decaying into a J/ψ and a φ meson, only one of which was well established before (X(4274), X(4500) and X(4700) and X(4140)).[144][145]

text: In December 2016, ATLAS presented a measurement of the W boson mass, researching the precision of analyses done at the Tevatron.[146]

text: Second run (2015 onward)[edit]

text: At the conference EPS-HEP 2015 in July, the collaborations presented first cross-section measurements of several particles at the higher collision energy.

text: On 15 December 2015, the ATLAS and CMS experiments both reported a number of preliminary results for Higgs physics, supersymmetry (SUSY) searches and exotics searches using 13 TeV proton collision data. Both experiments saw a moderate excess around 750 GeV in the two-photon invariant mass spectrum,[147][148][149] but the experiments did not confirm the existence of the hypothetical particle in an August 2016 report.[150][151][152]

text: In July 2017, many analysis based on the large dataset collected in 2016 were shown. The properties of the Higgs boson were studied in more detail and the precision of many other results was improved.[153]

text: Planned "high-luminosity" upgrade[edit]

text: After some years of running, any particle physics experiment typically begins to suffer from diminishing returns: as the key results reachable by the device begin to be completed, later years of operation discover proportionately less than earlier years. A common response is to upgrade the devices involved, typically in collision energy, luminosity, or improved detectors. In addition to a possible increase to 14 TeV collision energy in 2018, a luminosity upgrade of the LHC, called the High Luminosity LHC, is planned,[154] to be made after 2022.

text: Safety of particle collisions[edit]

text: The experiments at the Large Hadron Collider sparked fears that the particle collisions might produce doomsday phenomena, involving the production of stable microscopic black holes or the creation of hypothetical particles called strangelets.[155] Two CERN-commissioned safety reviews examined these concerns and concluded that the experiments at the LHC present no danger and that there is no reason for concern,[156][157][158] a conclusion expressly endorsed by the American Physical Society.[159]

text: The reports also noted that the physical conditions and collision events that exist in the LHC and similar experiments occur naturally and routinely in the universe without hazardous consequences,[157] including ultra-high-energy cosmic rays observed to impact Earth with energies far higher than those in any man-made collider.

text: Popular culture[edit]

text: The Large Hadron Collider gained a considerable amount of attention from outside the scientific community and its progress is followed by most popular science media. The LHC has also inspired works of fiction including novels, TV series, video games and films.

text: CERN employee Katherine McAlpine's "Large Hadron Rap"[160] surpassed 7 million YouTube views.[161][162] The band Les Horribles Cernettes was founded by women from CERN. The name was chosen so to have the same initials as the LHC.[163][164]

text: National Geographic Channel's World's Toughest Fixes, Season 2 (2010), Episode 6 "Atom Smasher" features the replacement of the last superconducting magnet section in the repair of the collider after the 2008 quench incident. The episode includes actual footage from the repair facility to the inside of the collider, and explanations of the function, engineering, and purpose of the LHC.[165]

text: The Large Hadron Collider was the focus of the 2012 student film Decay, with the movie being filmed on location in CERN's maintenance tunnels.[166]

text: The feature documentary Particle Fever follows the experimental physicists at CERN who run the experiments, as well as the theoretical physicists who attempt to provide a conceptual framework for the LHC's results. It won the Sheffield International Doc/Fest in 2013.

text: Fiction[edit]

text: The novel Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown, involves antimatter created at the LHC to be used in a weapon against the Vatican. In response, CERN published a "Fact or Fiction?" page discussing the accuracy of the book's portrayal of the LHC, CERN, and particle physics in general.[167] The movie version of the book has footage filmed on-site at one of the experiments at the LHC; the director, Ron Howard, met with CERN experts in an effort to make the science in the story more accurate.[168]

text: In the visual novel/manga/anime-series "Steins;Gate", the primary antagonist controls a global research organization called SERN, the name of which is a deliberate misspelling of CERN. In the series SERN designs a particle accelerator and uses the miniature black holes created from experiments to master time travel and take over the world.

text: The novel FlashForward, by Robert J. Sawyer, involves the search for the Higgs boson at the LHC. CERN published a "Science and Fiction" page interviewing Sawyer and physicists about the book and the TV series based on it.[169]