# If I stood in the LHC, would my protons be stripped away? Clinical depression alleviated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2012, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167 "2012-08-11T05:21:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/1 "2012-08-11T05:21:55Z")
The first question is more than a little silly, but I thought of it while having an MRI done. The second half refers to the fluxes involved in [transcranial magnetic stimulation.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation) Perhaps my neurons would shatter. Looking at it from the other way, if I were inside the LHC (vacuum, I know), how would the system react when the power switch was turned on? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/2 "2012-08-11T05:45:12Z")
Your depression would certainly be alleviated. Permanently. [Hand back into the Large Hadron Collider](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lVefgfmFg9o#!) ---
**Author:** ![allotrope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@allotrope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/allotrope)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/3 "2012-08-11T06:56:07Z")
TMS works by using a rapidly oscillating magnetic field similar to an MRI. A synchrotron (like the LHC) uses radio frequency cavities to accelerate charged particles in a way more akin to a cathode ray tube. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/4 "2012-08-11T07:08:49Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Your depression would certainly be alleviated. Permanently. > > [Hand back into the Large Hadron Collider](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lVefgfmFg9o#!) Ok, so assuming you can shield yourself from the electron halo, it’s like forcing a freight train through 1mm hole in your hand. Cool. Who’s volunteering? Show of hands? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/5 "2012-08-11T07:17:07Z")
This was the first thing I thought of: > **[Anatoli Bugorski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski)** > > Anatoli Petrovich Bugorski (Russian: Анатолий Петрович Бугорский; born 25 June 1942) is a Russian retired particle physicist. He is known for surviving a radiation accident in 1978, when a high-energy proton beam from a particle accelerator passed through his brain. > As a researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, Russian SSR, Anatoli Bugorski worked with the largest particle accelerator in the Soviet Union, the U-70 synchrotron. On 13 July 1978, Bugorski was checking a m... ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/6 "2012-08-11T07:23:54Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Looking at it from the other way, if I were inside the LHC (vacuum, I know), how would the system react when the power switch was turned on? Well, lets take this a step at a time. Assuming you’ll need to lay down, would you like the millimeter wide beam of protons going almost the speed of light to shoot through your crotch first, or your head? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/7 "2012-08-11T08:41:33Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Ok, so assuming you can shield yourself from the electron halo, it’s like forcing a freight train through 1mm hole in your hand. Cool. Who’s volunteering? Show of hands? Thanks for the cite. It comes from a wonderful web site called sixtysymbols, which has a ton more and links to similar sites. \*\* In a followup video on the same question, one of the guys says one proton is revved up to the energy of a mosquito, which is cool enough. In a typical burst, I forget how many times a sec, it’s an aircraft carrier at 11 knots. Is that the same as a freight train? I don’t think so. Of course, it was temporary stupidness to think that it was a proton sucker as a whole; hence the whole pre-stage ring for a proton windup. But in the OP I should have said: if I stood in the LHC _by myself_, would my protons–the only ones around–be sucked out like chocolate chips from a cookie? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/8 "2012-08-11T08:46:44Z")
Also, the humongous energy of the protons in an experiment–freight train, carrier, etc–, wouldn’t the millimeter width simply create a millimeter tunnel completely through my hand (indeed, the beam is actually collimating much narrower at the last moment). We’re the energy more spread out, I’d be in trouble. But a narrow beam? ---
**Author:** ![allotrope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@allotrope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/allotrope)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/9 "2012-08-11T09:07:00Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > But in the OP I should have said: if I stood in the LHC _by myself_, would my protons–the only ones around–be sucked out like chocolate chips from a cookie? If you’re asking where the protons come from for the accelerator, it’s hydrogen gas. It’s ionized down to it’s protons. LHC is much more finicky eater that you probably imagined. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/10 "2012-08-11T16:26:48Z")
Most of the circumference of the ring would feel just like vacuum. There are eight primary RF cavities around the ring, though, and things would be more interesting inside of those. Here’s a picture of one of the [LHC RF cavities](https://mediastream.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/2000/0009014/0009014_01/0009014_01-A4-at-144-dpi.jpg). Actually, you can’t see the 4-chambered cavity itself; you are seeing the cryostat that surrounds it. For an example of what’s inside, here’s a [naked RF cavity](http://projectx.fnal.gov/images/superconducting-rf-m.jpg) (not an LHC one, though). The LHC cavities produce electric fields of 5 MV/m (megavolts per meter) oscillating at 400 MHz. I’ll assume a mouse rather than a human so that we can fit our subject in the central region of the cavity. The mouse would be cooked in an instant. 5 MV/m is also enough to ionize atoms, so the mouse would have atoms and electrons ripped from its body. Note that individual protons are ripped out only because there is hydrogen available, as 5 MV/m is nowhere near enough to split larger nuclei apart. Everything else comes out just as ionized atoms (and electrons). The ion ejecta would not circulate around the beam pipe. That takes careful aiming and focusing of the beam. Rather, they’d just splat into the first thing they hit. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-stood-in-the-lhc-would-my-protons-be-stripped-away-clinical-depression-alleviated/631167/11 "2012-08-11T22:00:27Z")
Ok, another scenario, kind of related to my question above about a “pinprick” of massive energy passing through my hand, leaving a cauterized hole. I’ll disregard radiation effects, and, my hand being larger in surface area, a hole–if one can be made–is survivable, unlike with a mouse’s body. Let us say that the ion ejecta is emitted, and some tiny but real time after the hole in my hand (?) is drilled, I remove my hand before the ejecta has time to splat against anything. Or, the ejecta is, as you suggested, whisked away by careful aiming and focusing of the beam before the splat time. Although I still wish the energy would be high enough for some nucleonics action.