Editing Accelerators (section)

== Why This Works ==

''Velocity'' is when something is moving at a fixed speed, like a car going 25 mph. ''Acceleration'' is when something has an increase in velocity over a period of time. Acceleration is when something is "speeding up", like a car going from 25 mph to 45 mph in a few seconds. An ''Accelerator'' is a device or machine that can accelerate something. In a vehicle, the accelerator in a car is able to speed up the vehicle so you can drive at the speed limit. The car's accelerator is powered by the energy released from the fuel used. However, we can experience acceleration in other ways as well, such as the downward acceleration of gravity or acceleration from the pull or push between magnetic materials.

The setup we have can helps us visualize one way how a ''Particle Accelerator'', a machine that can make atomic particles move extremely fast, can work. To accelerate a particle, such as an atom, the particle will first be stripped of any electrons on it, so that it is a positive ion. The accelerator will release it towards a negatively charged ring, which it accelerates towards. The moment the particle reaches the center of the ring, the charge will “flip”, meaning that the positive and negative sides of the ring will switch. This send the particle flying through it, and it will get a second increase in the acceleration from the push of the positive charge. By controlling the rate that the charges flip, we can get a particle moving extremely fast, even up to half the speed of light! You can think of the initial acceleration as being like the ball being fired by the slingshot. The "flip" would be if we could fire the ball, and then have a second slingshot fire it in the same direction as the ball gets to it.

The setup works by simulating the “flip” with the distance between the ends of the marble series. The last marble in each series is only barely held on, so it will be flung off by the collision of the “particle” marble with the first one in the chain. The last marble will then have the speed of the original particle marble, and will then speed up as it approaches the next magnetic marble. When it collides with the next chain it will pass on the speed increase (including that gained from accelerating towards the next magnet) to the next marble released, and so on. After repeating this process, we can see that the last marble on the end chain flies off much faster than the first marble due to this acceleration process.