# Practical understanding of energies in LHC collisions

Is visible light emitted at the point of collision in the LHC? If so, how bright? How much water could be heated up by 10 degrees celsius (this is the energy from collision only, not the energy to accelerate/guide the particles).

• You appear to have two different questions here, one about the LHC, and one about heating water. Could you either ask them separately, or, if they are meant to be connected, make that connection a little bit more clear? – Dave Coffman Apr 9 '15 at 20:36
• @dave: I think he means something like "how much water can be heated up by 10 deg from the energy of the lhc." – Kyle Kanos Apr 9 '15 at 21:08

The current collision energy of the restarted, upgraded LHC is 13 TeV. This is about $2 \times 10^{-6}$ Joules. Water has a specific heat capacity of about 4.2 Joules per gram per degree Kelvin. So this tiny amount of energy would heat up a gram of water (i.e. a large drop) by about $5 \times 10^{-7}$ degrees.
However, the beams contain of the order of $10^{14}$ protons so the beam energy is actually a sizeable 360 Megajoules. That is enough energy to heat water by about $10^{5}$ kg-degrees. That is, it would heat 1000 kg of water by 100 degrees - so you could boil a large bath.