MooPig Wisdom

The Large Hadron Collider
Our understanding of the Universe is about to change...

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.

Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe. For decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only experimental data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge, and those who dare to dream beyond the paradigm.
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Large Hadron Collider to start again, but costs rise in race to discover 'God Particle'
The Large Hadron Collider is to be run flat out throughout the year in order to make up for lost time and to beat an American rival to finding the elusive Higgs Boson – known as the "God Particle".


By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: 7:00AM BST 05 Jun 2009
The £4bn particle accelerator, which broke down last year, was to be turned off in winter to reduce energy demands during peak electricity prices.

But the delays and the news that a smaller less powerful accelerator at Fermilab in Illinois is closing in on the particle has meant it will continue running throughout the year – at an extra cost of £13 million.Dr Lyn Evans, the Welsh scientist who heads the project, said: "It would have been terrible if we'd got everything working and then had to shut it down straight away.

"So we've decided to bite the bullet and keep it going. That means that if the schedule slips by a week or two, it's not so bad. Up until this year that was inconceivable."

Built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), the collider lies beneath the French-Swiss border, near the institution's headquarters in Geneva, at depths ranging from 170ft to 600ft.

The aim of the experiment is to recreate the conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang – the birth of the universe – and provide vital clues to the building blocks of life.

It will track the spray of particles thrown out by collisions in a search for the elusive Higgs Boson, a theoretical entity that supposedly lends weight, or mass, to the elementary particles.

So important is this mysterious substance that it has been called the 'God Particle'.

The "big bang machine" is currently being readied for its restart after repairs to the catastrophic fault that shut it down just days after it was switched on last year.

The first beams of particles will be fired around the LHC's 17-mile ring in September and the first collisions will follow about a month later, Dr Evans told the Cheltenham Science Festival.

"I always wish Fermilab good luck, but they will have a hard job now," he added.