LHC proton-collision scene in Blender

Summary
This video is a 3D animated fly-through of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and a simulated particle collision, created by Alexey Fateev (@superalesha) using Blender with scripting/generation assisted by Claude Opus 5.5. The camera moves through the LHC service tunnel, enters the superconducting dipole magnet pipe and vacuum tube, zooms in on an ultra-relativistic proton bunch collision, and pulls back to reveal the detector architecture.

What is shown

• [00:00–00:07]: Camera tracking down the curved LHC tunnel alongside the blue dipole magnet casing, displaying tunnel depth and magnet specifications.
• [00:07–00:10]: Cutaway view into the dual-beam cryogenic magnet interior showing the twin vacuum pipes and coil cross-sections.
• [00:10–00:18]: High-speed camera perspective moving straight down the evacuated beam pipe toward oncoming proton bunches.
• [00:18–00:24]: Slow-motion close-up of proton bunches colliding at an interaction point within the final nanosecond before and after impact.
• [00:24–00:28]: Explosion of particle decay tracks and collision debris frozen 0.2 nanoseconds after collision inside the inner tracker.
• [00:28–00:34]: Cutaway pull-out through the calorimeter and outer red muon spectrometer layers (resembling CMS), concluding on summary operational metrics for the LHC.

Claims & numbers
All claims appear via on-screen captions:

• LHC depth: 100 m beneath the French-Swiss border [00:01].
• Dipole magnets: 1,232 superconducting dipoles operating at 8.3 T and 1.9 K [00:04].
• Current: Niobium-titanium coils carrying 11,850 A [00:08].
• Vacuum: Beam vacuum of $10^{-13}\text{ atm}$ [00:11].
• Beam velocity: Protons travel at 99.9999991% of the speed of light [00:13].
• Bunch timing: Bunches cross every 25 ns [00:17].
• Collision zoom scale: The last nanosecond before impact [00:19]; frozen 0.2 nanoseconds after collision [00:23].
• Event simulation parameters: Simulated event $H \to \gamma\gamma + Z \to \mu\mu$ in a 3.8 T magnetic field [00:25].
• Detector absorber: Muons penetrating 12,500 tonnes of iron [00:29].
• Overall collider specifications: 27 km circumference, 13.6 TeV collision energy, and 40 million bunch crossings per second [00:31].

Notable quotes
(From on-screen text overlays)

• [00:19] “Slow motion: the last nanosecond before impact”
• [00:25] “Simulated event · H → γγ + Z → μμ · 3.8 T field”
• [00:29] “Muons punch through 12,500 t of iron”

Assessment
This is a computer-animated physics educational render rather than an official lab release or software benchmark. The animation showcases procedural 3D modeling, lighting, and camera choreography scripted in Blender via Claude Opus 5.5, accurately visualizing LHC operational parameters and event geometry.

Lyrics & themes
The video is entirely instrumental, backed by cinematic ambient sound design, sub-bass whooshes, and synthesized mechanical acceleration noises that peak during the collision impact.

Lore & references
The video references standard High Energy Physics specifications for LHC Run 3 (13.6 TeV center-of-mass energy, 25 ns bunch spacing, 1.9 K superfluid helium cooling). The simulated event ($H \to \gamma\gamma + Z \to \mu\mu$) references the discovery channels of the Higgs boson and Z boson decays in the CMS detector, identifiable by the distinctive red-and-silver octagonal iron return yoke.

Visual style & craft
The piece features clean, 3D CGI rendering produced in Blender. Camera movements are fluid and continuous, transitioning smoothly from macro architectural scales down to microscopic particle bunch interactions with ray-traced lighting, motion blur, particle hair/strands representing track reconstruction, and stylized typography overlays.

Described by gemini-3.8-flash on 2026-10-10 from the video’s audio and frames.