Press Associates, September 10, 2008
Scientists began the world's largest science experiment hoping to unlock some of the secrets of the universe.The £5 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will smash protons - one of the building blocks of matter - into each other at velocities only a fraction less than the speed of light.
In the flashes from the collisions, scientists expect to reproduce conditions that existed during the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang at the birth of the universe. No one knows precisely what will come tumbling out of the primordial soup of disintegrating protons. But the scientists have dismissed suggestions that the experiment could somehow cause the end of the world.
The LHC could help scientists explain mass, gravity, mysterious "dark matter" and why the universe looks the way it does. It could also produce the first evidence of extra spatial dimensions and even create mini-black holes that blink in and out of existence in a fraction of a second.
The eyes of the world were on LHC project leader Dr Lyndon Evans, from Aberdare in south Wales, in the tense minutes before the machine was "switched on".
Looking relaxed in a short-sleeved shirt and jeans, Dr Evans counted down the last few seconds before the first beam of protons was put into the LHC.
"Five, four, three, two, one, zero - nothing," he joked before a blip appeared on a computer monitor signalling that the long years of hard work had paid off and the machine was working. Dr Evans, whose father was a coalminer, said: "This is really the biggest and most complex scientific project ever undertaken, and you cannot do a thing like this without engineers and applied scientists of very top quality."
The LHC, a colossal machine housed in a 27 kilometre (17 mile) tunnel under 100 metres of rock, straddles the borders of Switzerland and France between Lake Geneva and the Jura mountains.
Beams of protons will be accelerated in opposite directions through the ring-shaped tunnel, which is supercooled to just 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (minus 271C), the lowest temperature allowed by nature. Reaching velocities of 99.99% of the speed of light, each beam will pack as much energy as a Eurostar train travelling at 150 kilometres per hour.
Concerns have been voiced - in particular by German chemist Professor Otto Rossler - that black holes created by the LHC will grow uncontrollably and "eat the planet from the inside". But those involved in the project insist they have reviewed all the evidence and concluded that it poses no risk to the universe.
1 comment:
Sounds like a European " bridge to nowhere" to me.
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