Particle Accelerators Reimagined - with Suzie Sheehy

Particle accelerators aren't just for studying particle physics. Suzie Sheehy explains how accelerators actually work, highlights her research controlling high power proton beams and imagines what they may be capable of in the future.
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Suzie Sheehy is an Accelerator Physicist at the University of Oxford. Her research interests lie in the areas of particle physics, accelerator physics and their applications including medical and energy applications.
She is also heavily involved in science outreach and often appears in the media to explain the work of particle physicists and how accelerators work.
This event was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
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[@erictaylor5462]

You guys really should post a warning that these lectures are really addictive. People should know coming in that they could be spending the next several hours watching RI videos.

[@thekaxmax]

go check the Tvtropes article on that effect. :p

[@erictaylor5462]

thekaxmax link?

[@justindavis3623]

It's an inside joke. TVTropes is a website that is highly addictive (even more so than these RI videos) and whenever someone posts a link to a TVT article it's common to reply with something along the lines of 'there goes the rest of my day' or the like.

[@TheChuchurocket]

Applications: medicine, energy, creating and destroying entire universes. You know, just another waste of tax payer money.

[@AvatarOfBhaal]

Would recommend looking into the many university channels available!

[@brentwalker8596]

I love how she laughs at things which only a small number of people would find funny. Very endearing quality and shows how brilliant she is.

[@Django44]

Good observation. To me she has an attitude seldom seen in adults, a child-like (not childish) curiosity about the world. Fortunate are those who work with her.

[@TheEVEInspiration]

Honestly, her voice is gold...her jokes disarming and it makes me feel great every time I hear it.

[@bobd5119]

It's fun to imagine what Meitner, Curie, Rutherford, and Thomson would have to say if they could listen to Ms Sheehy's talk.

[@TrapperAaron]

K M

[@antonleimbach648]

Thank you for posting these lectures. They are amazing!

[@AntoniGawlikowski]

This is THE BEST lecture I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. Really top-notch!

[@jackpullen3820]

At 14:12 She grounds out the high voltage charge.You don't want to forget and yes these videos are addictive! TY

[@theflyingfool]

What a lovely lady! Such enthusiasm and passion for her subject. I learnt a lot watching this discourse and thanks for the humour, even if it was geeky! :)

[@DemoniteBL]

Making others a compliment means you're a pervert now? What?

[@pdr.]

@@DemoniteBL Smart people are attractive to all of us, that is our nature.

[@jeffreyjaystein]

@@DemoniteBL geeky is the new sexy!

[@Enonymouse_]

Ri has some of the best lectures i've found!

[@sirvapalot]

completely agree, i finally getting what i always wanted on KZbin it is a learning resource for me im im good with that for now

[@richardedgar2783]

Great talk. I really enjoyed listening to you bring back memories. You are in an exciting field with great potential for the future. Keep up with your good work! As a young engineer working in my employer's Super Power Lab my first job was to take a 10 foot section of an "S-band" linear accelerator and marry it to a high power crossed field amplifier in a single vacuum for a medical application. I went on from that application to design high power microwave tubes for military radar and industrial applications. Later I led a group for over two decades working on high power industrial microwave designs for many applications in the food, foundry, ceramics, nuclear waste remediation, medical sterilization, and even power beaming to name just a few. I hope you are still at it and wish you the very best.

[@satkin]

I now understand more about accelerators than I ever did before. Very interesting and explanatory. I had no idea there were so many accelerators in existence, and what uses they are put to, having only seen the large ones at RAL before.

[@TuckaBuck89]

Wow, impressive, very impressive. Practical applications, and solutions to problems encountered in developing new technology, a result of coupling "thinking outside of the box" with a thorough understanding of the physics. I look forward to reading about what Ms. Sheehy discovers and creates over the next decade and more.

[@ctdieselnut]

This is a awesome channel and I'm very thankful they post these vids, let alone for free. It's a beautiful thing.

[@AlphaNumeric123]

Excellent talk, both in the sense of the content and the speaker. No surprise that she’s an Oxonian through and through, as this was excellent. One of the very best RI talks I’ve seen.

[@ruimartins2615]

Sure BBC will pick Suzie for documentaries. Pleasant presentation, not too heavy.

[@ruimartins2615]

More than beauty, the mind matters: I.e. Carl Sagan and Jacob Bronowski where quite ugly for me, but amazing. Hannah has a sharp and clear speech and is funny! Alice Roberts is beautiful.

[@Dr10Jeeps]

Excellent! Very informative and interesting. Thank you RI and Dr. Sheehy.

[@jordiewalters871]

I've watched this about 300 times and I love it, it's beautiful😊

[@johnhathorn2743]

In Texas, we saw the possibility of a super-duper collider become a financial fizzle. Thus life beyond the CERN is hard to shake out of the coin purses of governments. It's interesting to see that more types of useful accelerators are possible that won't consume all the money in all the nations of the world. Sheehy's talk should be required viewing for our legislators.

[@MerrimanDevonshire]

If you want a good book to read about that debacle, check out Tunnel Visions (www.amazon.com/Tunnel-Visions-Superconducting-Super-Collider/dp/022629479X)... you would be surprised how this has been 'required reading' for other Science Projects in the U.S. and elsewhere.

[@sunroad7228]

Book: "No device can generate energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it". the-fifth-law.com/pages/press-release

[@ericpmoss]

And this year, a new crop of imbeciles voted 10x as much to *add* to the military budget -- they added as much as Russia's total expenditures. Sheesh.

[@jafinch78]

To me, unless you get into being lazy with social management of large populations because of the refusal to provide value added programming for mass and energy management... these particle accelerators systems seem delusional grandiose strange to invest in without more distributed, secured and I think even placed underground, underwater or on barges nuclear power plants. Seems strange the gaps in physics, engineering and actual implementations when we have more feasible implementations that can be energy efficient and even use more heat from solar not being implemented for the masses. Say for nuclear... to not waste water or to refine sea water... why aren't novel investments in desalination of sea water at nuclear power plants or even external combustion generation at nuclear power plants explored for say solar concentrating trough power stations hybrid designs where we don't require to waste water? Seem mentally ill to me some days the inconsiderate to our constituents implementations not being implemented to bring costs down for higher quality survival requirements at extreme population densities and these delusional forensically clean killing systems for grandiose, delusional, narcissists that have some insane cult mission. Maybe I am missing something to comprehend why? What are the actual milestones they are trying to determine that will aid for practical applications to the masses other than radiating people to death with systems that we know are not as effective as others that we know are?

[@CarterColeisInfamous]

as a texan i was pissed

[@jenko701]

This lady is a great example for our young people. Just inspiring .

[@GodlikeIridium]

"Get the particles, give them some energy, bend them around the corner. Done. NO!" xD Love it.

[@aryehfinklestein9041]

Especially marvelous presentation...enlightening. Thankyou.

[@erictaylor5462]

4:00 In the words of my favorite scientist, in responding to the question, "But what use are they?" "What use is a new born baby?"

[@erictaylor5462]

@Heads Mess Well, it can be food, or if your lucky, a teaching tool.

[@pedrovelazquez138]

I like the way she shares her knowledge with the audience. She makes it look so easy.

[@fuffoon]

Super interesting. I had no idea about all the current practical applications. As far as my ideas of future applications that she spoke of in her closing, I can only believe that they will be of ideas only found in science fiction at the present.

[@GordonjSmith1]

Wonderful lectures, and this is another. Informative, communicative, and welcoming to the uninitiated - at least most of them. Love it when real scientists present real science.

[@mitzvahgolem8366]

Excellent!! I am sending this to my daughter as an inspirational video. שלום

[@AGAMTV108]

Perfect and pleasing one.....many many thanks Suize

[@bokchoiman]

10/10 talk. You've enlightened me to the world of particle accelerators.

[@tomcrockett7941]

At 11minutes was at the Fermi lab awhile back. Super amazing.

[@GodlikeIridium]

There are so much similarities and same mechanisms and apparatus used in both particle accelerators and mass spectrometers i use in chemical analysis.

[@ronaldjorgensen6839]

nice primer for me on topic yet do not fear getting to technical i have a lot of prerequisites on topic

[@raenayers815]

My responses to these videos may be late, but I feel somebody somewhere might appreciate them so here I go; Thanks for the BRILLIANT presentation. I spent a while thinking "Oh particle accelerator, I get it", but you've realy demonstrated great depth that I must have been previously missing, as that's the only way to explain the racing thoughts this video gave me. Miniature accelerators, suuuper sized orbital accelerators, from medicine to magic.

[@zubble7144]

Dr. Sheely, have you considered augmenting your Paul trap design together with the motivating force of a Cyclotron? IOW use a synchronized electric charge to attenuate the attractive (counter-containment force) of the alternating magnetic fields.

[@troelsfischerthomsen1892]

Hi, i was watching a video on lathe work, and how resonant can ruin surface finish, but constantly accelerating and de accelerating the RPM would help. That might work on the turntable model too, you mentioned experiment similar in the video but to be honest i didn't that part

[@stephenbrown40]

Amazing lecture, I really enjoyed the theory of magnetic fields oscillating with induced electromagnetic' to give an avalanche type of effect to the particles in a cavity, If these could be strung together in such a way that increased energy is applied to the particles. Is this the idea being put forward to increase the energy output, have I understood what is being proposed.

[@shaneavion4390]

Another person genuinely amazed by this intelligent and unique person 👌 being true to yourself is the only way you'll never lose-

[@robert8124]

Another excellent and informative presentation... CERN, geniuses...very worthwhile research...

[@NathanOkun]

Can the Paul trap be compared to the conical scan radar tracker, where you use the low-power null at the exact center of the beam by cocking the power beam slightly off at an angle and rotating the antenna to make this beam rapidly go round the central axis, which can be very small, allowing very tight tracking of a target?

[@rhov233]

What a great communicator! Wish to hear more from her!

[@Serotonindude]

wow! respect! i was shouting out when she showed us the rotating sattle thingy: yes! that is physics! it explains it suddendly! it made me so happy today! :)

[@slowburntm3584]

This kinda of knowledge just available for practically free just blows my mind!!

[@CDeruiter5963]

It was a very interesting talk, but I had trouble understanding the resonance graph at 37:30 can someone break it down for me? Is she trying to show that 2.5 is the ideal value to reach for both vertical and horizontal oscillations?

[@defeatSpace]

Goodness, her voice is so relaxing while also maintaining my attention.

[@chriswhitt6618]

What a brilliant video this was. Thanks

[@MrKay-fm4kd]

Is proton-beam decay acceleration necessary for nuclear waste recycling in a Thorium reactor if you use a Molten Salt Reactor (MSR)?

[@AntiProtonBoy]

Great to see Aussie physicists contributing to great things abroad.

[@orp0piru]

lol (26:10) those guys working at ISIS must have a great time at airports.

[@nadabutsi7537]

Great lecture! :)

[@Houmer]

I could listen to Suzies voice for the rest of my life.

[@dkathrens77]

I wouldn't need to listen, just watch her lips moving :D

[@turkerozturk6889]

Listen to this woman also: Sophie Ellis-Bextor

[@jayyyzeee6409]

Was it just me or was anyone else nervous when she put the foam ball on the rotating saddle (e.g. at 34:41)? The scariest was when she put it at full power at 35:40. They should call it the widow-maker.

[@PongoXBongo]

Yeah, the camera angle made it look a lot worse than it was.

[@ObeySilence]

This is like Ted but without being shit.

[@RFC3514]

TED is quite good. TEDx, on the other hand, is kind of amateur night.

[@codebulletin]

She is sexy

[@codebulletin]

I wanna marry her

[@mikeschatz9153]

Give Suzie a big budget and make her the face of modern physics. Brian Green,Cox,Tyson,and the rest could use the competition!

[@NathanOkun]

The analogy of the complex resonances is that your various instruments now become an orchestra and you have to figure out how to make the tubas work with the violins to make music (your desired acceleration without problems) and not noise. You need a Mozart to do this...

[@mohannadwazwaz5111]

الشكر الجزيل للعالِمة والقناة الناشرة

[@francescocatalano5855]

All right everything is focused on increasing specific energy of the beam but what about the application of the accelerator as propulsion a mean for lowering entropy as it's time to phase out the internal combustion engine technology old almost two centuries

[@travisfitzwater8093]

There is some lost energy (particles) when a beam is coaxed in more than one direction at once. Meaning in a Zed Vector? Or, are you saying the entire beam is lost if you change the algebra of the curve to bend in an additional direction?

[@natasfresas]

Great! I love this channel.

[@sirvapalot]

me too its straight up educational and i love youtube more than ever im all about understanding i have questions

[@vicplichota]

What, no mention of tabletop laser accelerators? Looking forward to watching the Q&A...

[@robadams5799]

I grew up in Burbank, Illinois, about 40 miles from Fermilab.

[@marc-andrebrunet5386]

je suis amoureux de la science grâce à RI....Bravo Suzie

[@ZeedijkMike]

Very nice lecture.

[@danielash1704]

I would add statically charge energy from lambs hairs and glass rods or curved glass sheets and spacers to static ballance.

[@ashoknaganur8551]

Studied about. The working applications technology and particle physics in accelerator

[@101virtualtours]

Amazingly performed. I became infatuated with it all.

[@michaelwiberg9173]

Try ionic ACCharged pyramids and repulsion by neg energy double helix field resonance. On one side of earth flow goes one direction down a drain opposite upon the other side of the equator. Directly down on the equator into the drain. This resonance is reactive to relationships. I

[@miashinbrot8388]

About the problem with charged particles interacting with each other in a particle beam and therefore pushing each other apart and defocusing the beam -- has anyone ever tried running negatively and positively charged particles or ions in the same beam in a circular accelerator? They would presumably rotate in opposite directions. Would the presence, and intermixing, of negative and positive particles in the two intersecting beams improve their focus?

[@koori3085]

I understand very little about the newer generations of particles, but I'm curious if the muon is a heavier form of an electron, couldn't we use it in a fashion to transfer more electrical energy? Just a shot in the dark, if I'm misunderstanding the generational steps, please forgive me. This lecture was very interesting and fun, a spark if you will, thank you very much!

[@saurabhbehere8818]

any trial focusing beam wid consistant variable speed?

[@andy16666]

Great lecture.

[@railgap]

I wonder what the beam cross sections / diameters are (average in storage rings, not in lenses or experiment halls) or diameters are of the 1MW class machines. Designing beam dumps for those must be fun. O_O

[@robadams5799]

I will freely admit that I clicked on this link because I saw a pretty lady wearing a mic. She's got a great accent and she has the crucial ability to simplify complex ideas. When she got to the part about resonance, I immediately remembered a commercial featuring Ella Fitzgerald's voice shattering a wine glass.

[@mjtonyfire]

A) I need her in my life haha! B) Awesome lecture; I hate when PhDs sometimes dumb things down, but I'm so glad she didn't. You don't give a lecture at the RI and dumb things down. She was interesting, witty, enthusiastic, obviously intelligent... Bravo. I learnt a lot from her talk. I'll be checking out a few more of her vids I reckon :P

[@vikingsoftpaw]

Susan Sheehy is further proof that STEM girls rock! We need more of them.

[@ericaspitzfaden4280]

Absolutely Brilliant!

[@robertlong2531]

Really good thanks, could we not have the audience Q & A's too please?

[@nettlesoup]

Q&A video is linked in the description

[@douro20]

The cyclotron at TRIUMF will continue to be important in the coming years due to its exceptionally bright proton beam and the ability to accelerate rare isotopes.

[@bobgoodall1603]

Just wondering if a flood of electrons could be used to reduce space charge effects.

[@hamradio3716]

A truly excellent speaker and lovely manner. More women like her are needed as STEM role models for young women.

[@MrPinknumber]

pretty interesting talk :)

[@JohnDoe_1237]

17:05 400MHz != 400x a second edit: okay, one moment later she said it correctly ^^

[@evolvedcopper2205]

Thumbnail 10/10 and lecture 11/10

[@SG-SilverGaming]

How can someone dislike this A deep explanation

[@maxdoubt5219]

Way over my head, but impressive and enchanting.

[@gregalexander4660]

Inverted DOME = Free Energy = What to the Fear Most? People Knowing [35]

[@lasuperneta3042]

Miss Sheehy are You for real?? All that intelligence, beauty an sympathy bundled in one individual is simply too difficult to believe… all my good will and admiration for You… Best regards!! Victor Micha Mexico City. 🇲🇽 ✌🏽😎

[@garysamuel9521]

Can an accelerated proton beam be created into a Bose Einstein Condensate, of even a low number of protons, thus overcoming the mutual Coulomb force? Something like the electron pairs in superconducting circuits. Or would all of the protons’ positive charges be somehow altered so that the proton packet could not be controlled? So, fewer protons but better aimed and more dense thus achieving a satisfactory collision rate. Where is the positive charge in a ‘plasma’ of nucleons made of protons and neutrons inside an atom’s nucleus? Could the quark/gluon and virtual q/g flux be studied better if beams of light weight element ions were collided?

[@jorymil]

Bose-Einstein condensates happen at extremely low energies; the opposite of what's going on inside a particle accelerator. They're also generally made with somewhat heavy atoms like rubidium, rather than bare protons, hydrogen atoms, helium atoms, etc.

[@erictaylor5462]

38:30 I would bet, just based on our relative intelligence that her guess would be better than mine.

[@electrospank]

The platter used to spin the demo quadrupole trap is out of balance. The unit is beautifully built so I expect it didn't start that way. With all the smart people in the room I'm sure it can be repaired.

[@PhotonicEmission]

Holy crap, I work for Varian. I didn't know that Suzie was talking at the RI. Why doesn't my company tell me things like this?!

[@andyb2339]

Alternating gradient at 32:00!

[@RogerBarraud]

Love that this starts off with New Zealand (Rutherford) :-)

[@ronlokk]

I love the RI videos, but I have to keep going back Jay Leno's garage to get back down to earth and then come back here and try to understand it all. Wew!

[@monabuster312]

Excellent Talk

[@ethorii]

This woman won the genetic lottery.

[@muffty1337]

Wow! What an utterly useless statement...

[@ethorii]

@@muffty1337 what fun is life when you can't make the occasional pointless observation?

[@AndrewSkow1]

@@muffty1337 Still upset you didn't?

[@seitbekir]

Are you sure you wrote what you meant?

[@ASLUHLUHCE]

@@muffty1337 Ironic

[@Sc0ttPrian]

I never thought I'd see a resonance cascade.

[@Draalo]

about 35:20 - "we have people who are better of it" - Dear Ms. Suzie Sheehy, pls consider at least a volunteer for those demonstrations - at least you can blame them for THEIR mishaps ;) (Still) Enjoying your lecture. Regards from the Ruhrgebiet, Draalo

[@johntowner1893]

Definitely my kind of Girl. Although I like the audience question and answer section to be included, It felt like the single audience question included at the end was asked by someone with a self interest in the area of “investment” that he inquired about re high energy particle accelerators and a particular innovation therein.

[@TheWeedMercenary]

Are there bio organic trails in outerspace??

[@sanjuansteve]

It seems the most obvious & logical explanation for a #particle acting like an #AxialWave when moving thru space is that it's orbiting something (a dark matter particle perhaps) or visa versa. It's not unlike Earth being pulled into a wobble by the moon, or a distant star's wobble evidencing planet orbits making our trajectory as we fly thru space have an axial wave (packet) as well. And since we think we know undetectable dark matter exists but don't yet know where it's distributed, this seems the most logical possibility. What do you think? This could explain the double slit experiment results, including with a detector with some interaction between the dark matter and the detector.

[@TheEvilmooseofdoom]

I'm sorry but from what I know everything you said is largely nonsense.

[@sanjuansteve]

What theory do you believe best explains wave particle duality for example?

[@felixthecrazy]

I love how she has written in all these moments of things she finds legitimately humorous, but kind of fall flat on the audience.

[@xorboy]

The audience is always a bit dull at the royal institution... :C You can sometimes see it in the lecturers, when their joy dies, and they just give the lecture go get it over with. I think this one was really good!

[@TheDruidKing]

You'll love this then... What's the presenters name? Gesundheit! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahaha hahaha haha ha no?

[@youcanfoolmeonce]

+felixthecrazy There is nothing funny about a ten billion dollar accelerator that creates a particle which disappears a billionth of a second after the (proton) collision. Aye, there is tremendous amount of data that came came about, and the fizzisists can study it for decades! For six figure salaries...

[@RogerBarraud]

+Thomas Anderson (Neo?): Attention Span? What use is a brain, if you can't think? ;-)

[@gunnargrautnes4451]

youcanfoolmeonce I agree. Just imagine all the stone axes and deer hides we could have bought for that money! We could have afforded not to kill of our elderly for a winter or two, perhaps we could even hold a great feast to honour the Great Orange One, to ensure bountiful hunts for years to come? My family could have had enough sea shells to pay the mortgage on our cave, instead of having to sell three of my siblings to Othvar Man-eater...

[@douro20]

There is a video of various Paul traps acting upon dust particles in the air...