The Large Hadron Collider
The world's most sophisticated and expensive
science project
by Mark Hughes and Beth Rowen
On March 30, 2010, 15 months after the world's most expensive and sophisticated science experiment was shut down for repairs, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 17-mile-long looped track located an average of 300 feet beneath the Swiss-French border, accelerated two beams of particles to 7 tera electron volts (TeV) and then smashed them together. The collision earned the LHC the distinction of being the world's highest energy particle accelerator, breaking by three-and-a-half times the previous record held by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron machine, which is located in Batavia, Illinois.
Built over the span of 14 years by Geneva's CERN Laboratories at a cost of more than $8 billion, the LHC was activated for the first time
in September 2008. The length of the track
aids in pushing trillions of protons to speeds reaching 99.99% the
speed of light. This means protons can travel 11,000 times around the
track in a single second, producing more than a billion head-on
collisions.
Super-Smash up
Physicists are
using the LHC to conduct experiments designed to enhance our understanding of
the origin and evolution of the universe. One of the most anticipated
experiments will involve re-creating the particles that were present about a
trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. This primordial energy will be
generated by accelerating protons to 7 TeV and having two beams of particles crash into each other. In November 2009, when the LHC was operational again, the particles were accelerated to 450 billion electron volts—merely a fraction of the 7 trillion electron volts that physicists hope to achieve.
Unsolved Mysteries
Physicists hope the LHC will
help solve such mysteries as the origin of mass. At present, the mass of any
object can be found easily, but answering the question of where mass itself
comes from is elusive. The Higgs particle, also called the Higgs Boson or "God particle," has
been theorized as the source of mass in the universe. Mathematical evidence
for these particles has been an accepted and unifying feature of physics for
the last quarter century, but direct evidence for the existence of these
particles has yet to be found. Physicists hope the LHC will provide the
evidence to prove or disprove the Higgs theory once and for all. Others
anticipate testing theories about dark matter, super symmetrical
particles, and trans-dimensional particles.
Will the LHC
Destroy the World?
Prior to the activation of the LHC, some people
voiced concern that it would destroy the world. Click
here to read about the five most common fears about the LHC and reasons
why you should not be worried.
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