BBC Horizon: Six Billion Dollar Experiment [1 of 3]
The most advanced and expensive scientific instrument hitherto built will now be switched on sometime next month. The original 26 November 2007 switching has been delayed.
Dr Brian Cox, of the University of
Manchester, one of 2,000 scientists involved in this project, the Large Hadron
Collider (a 27 km circular tunnel filled with 2000 superconducting magnets), under
the suburbs of Geneva, says his job is to recreate conditions in the universe
less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang—in a controlled
environment. The idea is to understand
how atoms were made in the moments after the creation of the universe. The goal is to understand everything.
One beam of subatomic particles will be accelerated close to the speed of light in one direction. In the other direction, another beam of the same stuff. A miniscule fraction of the 800 millions proton collisions per second will be of interest. Different types of matter will emerge.
There are the familiar dimensions of
left-right, forward-back, up-down. The
LHC could reveal new dimensions, black holes.
Herein lies the fear that Geneva
and the rest of the world will be sucked in. The Cheshire Cat-like scientists tell us: the chance is very
very small. Haven't we heard that one before?
