Conquering Large Numbers at the LHC

Embark on a fascinating journey through the world of particle physics in this 42-minute conference talk from the 35th Chaos Communication Congress (35C3). Explore the incredible scale of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, from the initial hydrogen bottle to the final collision detection. Discover the challenges of extracting rare and interesting phenomena from billions of collisions, spanning 14 orders of magnitude in probability. Learn about the advanced data mining techniques used to find the proverbial needle in the haystack of petabytes of data. Gain insights into the intricate processes involved in preparing protons for collision, recording events, and analyzing the results. Understand how physicists overcome the astronomical odds – equivalent to scoring a basketball field goal from space – to study rare particle interactions and push the boundaries of our understanding of the universe.