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Magical Particle Accelerator (view source)

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{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}
The newest [[Phlebotinum Du Jour]] - [[I Love Nuclear Power]] for [[Turn of the Millennium|The Noughties]]/TheNewTens[[The New Tens]]/''Whatever The Hell This Decade Is Called''. Presumably thanks to the massive publicity surrounding the [[wikipedia:Large Hadron Collider|Large Hadron Collider]] (LHC), particle accelerators have become the latest science thingy that can do anything. Note that this usually involves [[Laser Hallway|visible beams]] and massive tunnels that people can stand next to or even ''inside'' without suffering unpleasantness such as [[Batman Can Breathe in Space|suffocation]], [[Explosive Decompression|freezing, boiling]], electrocution or dying of radiation poisoning shortly after.
 
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==▼
* An advert for the [[Shaving Is Science|Gillete Fusion razor]] has scientists making ''razor blades'' with some sort of bizarre particle accelerator/fusion reactor thingummybob.▼
 
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* "Saturn Ring" system in ''[[Darker Thanthan Black]]'' was an accelerator on the scale of [[Real Life]] colliders. It was supposed to destroy [[Reality Is Out to Lunch|Gates]] along with [[Alien Sky|everything]] and [[Differently-Powered Individual|everyone]] linked to them. Or at least one quite competent [[Mad Scientist]] is quite sure it should, anyway. There was some commotion when the news about this leaked out, of course. Note that the tunnels around the storage ring are evacuated -- asevacuated—as far as people on whom "workplace safety" extends are concerned. {{spoiler|And that the damaged tube looks like it's under some heavy fire even when no one hits it anymore.}}
* The plot in ''[[Steins;Gate]]'' is based around the idea that the Large Haldron Collider is going to be used in some way to destroy or take over or *''something*'' the world.
* While the actual LHC and similar devices are nowhere in sight, [[Tsutomu Nihei]]'s ''[[Knights Of Sidonia]]'' has most of the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] fueled by Higgs Bosons and the [[Humongous Mecha]] can perform power boosting combination maneuvers by linking arms together to form a ring, invoking the shape of a toroidal accelerator.
 
▲== Advertising ==
▲* An advert for the [[Shaving Is Science|Gillete Fusion razor]] has scientists making ''razor blades'' with some sort of bizarre particle accelerator/fusion reactor thingummybob.
 
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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* ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' has portable versions. It's possible to build such a device but they wouldn't act like the ones shown.
{{quote|'''Peter Venkman:''' Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator.}}
** The producers of the [[Ghostbusters (2016 film)|2016 remake]] commissioned real particle physicists to produce workable designs for the movie's proton packs using modern technology. Again, they would work, but not as ghost-catching devices.
* A particle accelerator firing causes time to repeat in a [[Groundhog Day Loop]] for a man in the made-for-TV movie, ''12:01''. He's aware of the looping of time because he was [[Lightning Can Do Anything|electrocuted]] by his alarm clock at exactly the time the particle accelerator fired off the first time, making him able to defeat one [[Phlebotinum Du Jour]] with a much older one.
 
== [[Light Novels]] ==
* The plot of Volume 19 of ''[[ToA AruCertain Majutsu noMagical Index]]'' kicks off when terrorists steal the controls to a gigantic Particle Accelerator hidden underneath Academy City and threaten to use it to blow up a huge chunk of the city if their demands are not met.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Angels and& Demons]]'' features an accelerator at CERN being used to produce enough [[Antimatter]] to blow up the Vatican (CERN does really produce antimatter, but only a tiny fraction of that amount).
* In the novel ''[[Flash Forward]]'', firing the LHC at the exact moment a neutron star erupts starts the plot's [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Timey Wimequake]].
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* This type of device was used in ''[[The X-Files]]'' episode "Soft Light", giving a guy a literal killer shadow.
* ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' {{spoiler|steals antimatter from the CERN facility to power the Imperceptor vest to break into the Escher Vault and steal cosmetics. Oh, and the planplans to a death ray.}}
* Though never actually explained, the brief view on approach to ''[[Terra Nova]]'''s Hope Plaza include a pair of massive circular structures, probably intended to be particle-accelerator components. Presumably this means that achieving [[Time Travel]] requires a [[Magical Particle Accelerator]] in that Verse.
* ''[[The Flash (TV 2014)|The Flash]]'' [[Phlebotinum Du Jour|updates]] the hero's [[Silver Age]] [[Freak Lab Accident]]+[[Lightning Can Do Anything]] to a particle accelerator explosion {{spoiler|though given the explosion is intentional and the accelerator was designed by a genius from the future, it is very possible it wasn't actually a particle accelerator and "particle accelerator" was simply a cover}}. Also doubles as a [[Mass Super-Empowering Event]].
 
== [[Radio]] ==
* The ''[[Torchwood]]'' radio play "Lost Souls", written to celebrate the launch of the LHC, has an alien soul-stealer living in the tunnels of the Collider, let in by a rip in the universe caused by the accelerator. [[Reverse Polarity|Reversing the polarity]] of the beams conveniently destroys the beast ''and'' reveals the Higgs Boson.
** The monster is a definite case of [[You Fail Physics Forever]]. It steals all your neutrons!
** Now we need them to do it at least a few hundred times, to find out whether Higgs Bosons are [[Random Drops]] or [[Organ Drops]], and what else these critters can yield.
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Writing in "LHC" (or [[For Science!|"SCIENCE"]]) in ''[[Scribblenauts]]'' is one of several ways of [[Kill'Em All|killing everyone on the screen. Including yourself]].
* In ''[[Another World (video game)|Another World]]'', Lester gets transported to the titular other world when [[Lightning Can Do Anything]] strikes the particle accelerator while he's running an experiment.
* In ''Emperor of The Fading Suns'' Cyclotron buildings are used to produce singularities for jump drives (the game is ''very'' loosely based on [[Fading Suns|the original setting]]).
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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{{quote|'''Prof. Farnsworth:''' [[Catchphrase Interruptus|Bad news nobody]]. The Super Collider's Super Exploded. I need you to take it back to trade it in for a wobbly CD rack and some of those rancid meatballs.}}
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
* In what is arguably the closest anyone has ever come to actually being killed by a ''real-life'' particle beam, a Russian named Anatoli Bugorsky stuck his head in the proton stream of a particle accelerator while performing some maintenance work. He reportedly saw a flash "brighter than a thousand suns". Amazingly, he survived (though it wasn't pretty). [[wikipedia:Anatoli Bugorski|The other wiki]] has an article about it.
** Good thing he didn't stick his head in the [[Antimatter|antiproton]] stream.
* Some gems have unusual colors not because of minor chemical contamination --— for one, [http://www.internetstones.com/dresden-green-diamond-famous-jewelry.html green diamonds]. They are either found in places where it was subjected to lots of penetrating radiation over centuries, or made by affecting a normal gem with the same... really quickly.
* Another decorative application of high-energy beams: [http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/Lichtenberg%20figures/Lichtenbergfigures.htm Lichtenberg figures]. Like with gems, photo can't show all the beauty of mica-like light reflections in the fine 3D structure, though demonstrates the principle.
* Remember those old televisions? They run on cathode tubes, which are technically particle accelerators.
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