August 2008 sees the biggest physical experiment that's ever been conducted taking place in Switzerland. The largest highest energy particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), will start up online this month after almost 20 years of construction.
It has cost £2 billion and is funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from 34 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. It is built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and lies near Geneva.
Atomic Accelerator
An atomic accelerator is a huge machine used to speed up particles to very high energies for hours before smashing them into even smaller particles.
The LHC uses protons and anti-protons, accelerating them up to 90% (+) of the speed of light and then crashing them into each other. All within an underground 27-kilometer circular tunnel lined with concrete and buried up to 175m underground.
The Big Bang
Cosmologists believe that the universe was started by the Big Bang over 14 billion years ago. The test of the LHC will recreate the conditions that existed a few nanoseconds after the Big Bang occured.
The hope is that these collisions will generate new particles that will help explain important properties of matter; specifically how it acquires weight and mass thereby answering some of the most confusing mysteries of the universe.
Is It Dangerous?
There are those who have said this is a dangerous experiment and that it will create a black hole in the middle of Europe, with a further possibility of destroying the earth.
Some have even tried calling for the project to be stopped. They argue that the accelerator is not 100% perfect, citing the accident in 2007 when one of the huge magnets blew up. This led to the repair and ugrading of all 24 magnets and the delay in start up of the experiment.
But in 2008 the LHC Safety Assessment Group (LSAG) published a report in which they reaffirmed and extended conclusions that LHC particle collisions present no danger. This review was further endorsed by a group of external scientists that advises CERN’s Council.
A New Age Of Discovery
CERN state as one of their reasons for the experiment the need to 'continue pushing our understanding of the fundamental structure of the universe'. They hope to be able to shed light on extra dimensions, dark energy and dark matter amoung others.
In the words of scientist Stephen Hawking, whose principal fields of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity, the experiment heralds "a new golden age of discovery for physicists".
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