Question: In your profile you mentioned that you would like to make a "synchrotron based board/card game" what is a synchrotron?

Ed Rial answered on 13 Mar 2015:

Hello

The short explanation: a synchrotron is a machine that accelerates charged particles like electrons up to very high speeds – sometimes nearly the speed of light. They are used mostly to generate light and X-rays to allow other scientists to investigate different materials.

A full explanation is a bit longer, but bear with me (and I’m sorry if I start telling you things you already know)!

To accelerate something you need to push or pull it with a force – a ball if you drop it will accelerate towards the Earth because of the force of gravity for example. To accelerate small charged particles like electrons we use the force of electromagnetism. An electric field can be used to speed electrons up, and magnetic fields can be used to push electrons around corners. The more you speed electrons up the less useful magnetic fields are to push them around corners – you need stronger magnetic fields. A synchrotron is called a synchrotron because it increases the magnetic field of the steering magnets ‘synchronously’ – i.e. at the same time, as the electrons get faster so the electrons always stay on the same path, and you can build your particle accelerator in a big circle.

When the electrons are bent around a corner they emit light and X-rays for other scientists to use. The way I want to make the game is to reflect the difficulties we have running Diamond. The scientists want a better machine, but they don’t want us to turn it off for very long to make improvements!