posted by admin on Sep 9
CERN are about to launch the biggest invention in physics!
Underground in Europe tomorrow morning, the most powerful atom-smasher ever built will come online. Scientists worldwide have eagerly awaited this moment for over 20 years.
In the flashes from the collisions, they expect to reproduce conditions that existed during the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang at the dawn of creation.
What happened after the Big Bang?
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, should let scientists get a closer look at the ‘make-up’ of matter. Hopefully filling in gaps in our existing knowledge - or even coming up at odds to current theory and changing years of belief.
The 17-mile underground tunnel will first be rigorously tested in the first few weeks to test the strength of the world’s largest superconducting magnets as protons are fired around the track.
If all goes to plan, within a month proton beams will be fired off in opposite directions to induce great collisions that should offer insights into particle theory.
The project has attracted researchers of 80 nationalities, some 1,200 of them from the US, which contributed £295 million of the project’s price tag of nearly £2.3 billion.
There are many other HC across the world, but none so powerful as this. The CERN collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel 150 to 500 feet.
Is it Safe?
Scientists insist the most powerful particle accelerator ever built is “absolutely safe” although concerns have been voiced. Some sceptics even fear it could create micro “black holes” and endanger the entire planet as the energies created will be up to seven times greater than any achieved before.
According to many sources, Professor Otto Rossler, a German chemist from a group of scientists mounting a last-minute court challenge to the project, has expressed worries about the creation of black holes.
He, (along with others) believe that microscopic black holes could be generated within the machine curing collisions. But according to CERN’s predictions, they will blink in and out of existence before anything ‘scary’ happens.
Apparently, everything they are attempting has happened in nature before, and protons regularly collide in the earth’s upper atmosphere without creating black holes.
The experiments could help scientists find answers to some of the biggest questions in physics, such as why the universe looks the way it does, and how to explain mass, gravity and mysterious “dark matter”.
I look forward to the results – visit the official Latest News Updates
Taken from MSN and LHC UK
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