What is the Large Hadron Collider?
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a high-energy particle accelerator. The accelerator is funded by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, the world’s largest particle physics organization, and passes through both France and Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, and is capable of colliding protons at energies up to fourteen trillion electron volts, as well as heavier particles, such as iron nuclei. It is hoped that the experiments done at the Large Hadron Collider may help resolve fundamental physics questions, such as the nature of mass, and the existence of extra dimensions. The main body of the Large Hadron Collider is an underground circular tunnel three miles (five kilometers) across, once used to house an earlier particle accelerator. Particles are injected into the tunnel at high speeds in opposite directions, and are then accelerated by powerful magnetic fields. Keeping the particles in a beam, while they are circulat
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN starts up next Wednesday. I have been meaning to post about this but think this video below gives a better outline than I could. (I’m all in favour of using novel and popular methods to communicate science). The rapper is Katherine McAlpine (known as alpinekat). She has a day job as a science writer. Large Hadron Rap LHC gets its own rap song Scientific American news. Let the Proton Smashing Begin. (The Rap Is Already Written.) New York Times article. Time Lapse video of ATLAS experiment assembly See also: LHC First Beam Photos CERN Twitter CERN Podcast – Dr. Brian Cox takes guests around the LHC discussing its construction and what discoveries are expected. Guardian News and comment on the world’s most ambitious scientific experiment: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European laboratory for particle physics near Geneva. Beautiful photographs of the LHC at the Big Picture. Lecture on the LHC by Robert Orr, John Ellis – European Organization
Scientists have switched on the most powerful particle accelerator ever built as they prepare for an epic journey back in time to the birth of the universe. The machine has been called the largest scientific experiment in history and it straddles the French and Swiss border buried at a depth of 330 feet underground in 17 miles of tunnel. It cost $5.8 billion to set up and with it scientists will hunt for signs of invisible “dark matter” and “dark energy”. The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some strange discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on. However the safety of the powerful collider has been debated for years. Some critics fear that the Large Hadron Collider may actually exceed physicists’ wildest calculations by creating a black hole that could swallow Earth, or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead mass, or release theoretical killer particles known as strangelets. Scientists at CERN, the
