CERN: European Organization for Nuclear Research

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.

LHC Shuts Down For Two Months Due To Helium Leak

Just a week ago, the transformer failed and now a new hardware, due to its malfunction, has stopped the LHC, dead in its tracks. This time a magnet quench event has occurred due to failure of the electrical link between two of the particle accelerator's massive 30-ton superconducting magnets. The complex rectifying process will take approximately two months. The section of the tunnel will have to be warmed up, which contains the magnet. Then it will have to be cooled down to its -271°C operating temperature.

Stephen Hawking: Big Bang experiment could finally earn me a Nobel Prize

Daily Mail Reporter:09th September 2008

Experts around the world are eagerly awaiting the switch on of the world's biggest scientific experiment, and none more so than Professor Stephen Hawking. The £5billion Large Hadron Collider aims to recreate the conditions moments after the Big Bang that created the universe. It could offer Professor Hawking his best chance so far of winning a Nobel prize if it confirms his theory that black holes give off radiation. He told the BBC: 'If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don't think there's any doubt I would get a Nobel prize, if they showed the properties I predict. 'However, I think the probability that the LHC has enough energy to create black holes, is less than 1 per cent, so I'm not holding my breath.' The British physicist put forward his idea in the 1970s but it proved controversial because many scientists believed nothing could escape the gravitational pull of a black hole. Although Hawking's theory has become accepted by the profession is remains unproven. Nobel prizes in physics are awarded only when there is experimental evidence for a new phenomenon. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern may produce microscopic black holes that could evaporate in a flash of Hawking radiation. To do this, a massive 27km tunnel has been constructed under countryside in France and Switzerland near Geneva, which will be used to smash protons together at 99.99 per cent of the speed of light. Tomorrow morning, it will be switched on and the first attempt to send the particle beam around its entire 27km length will be made. Experts say the LHC is probably the most complex and challenging scientific endeavour since the Apollo programme put astronauts on the moon. One of the aims of the LHC is to hunt for the Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle". The Higgs is said to be the so-far undetected key to mass. If scientists can prove its existence, it could pave the way for manipulating the gravity which exists in all mass - rather like Star Trek 'tractor' beams.

Multibillion-dollar experiment to probe nature's mysteries

Deep underground on the border between France and Switzerland, the world's largest particle accelerator complex will explore the world on smaller scales than any human invention has explored before. The Large Hadron Collider will look at how the universe formed by analyzing particle collisions. Some have expressed fears that the project could lead to the Earth's demise -- something scientists say will not happen. Still, skeptics have filed suit to try to stop the project. Scientists say the collider is finally ready for an attempt to circulate a beam of protons the whole way around the 17-mile tunnel. The test, which takes place Wednesday, is a major step toward seeing if the the immense experiment will provide new information about the way the universe works. "It's really a generation that we've been looking forward to this moment, and the moments that will come after it in particular," said Bob Cousins, deputy to the scientific leader of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment, one of six experiments inside the collider complex. "September 10 is a demarcation between finishing the construction and starting to turn it on, but the excitement will only continue to grow." The collider consists of a particle accelerator buried more than 300 feet near Geneva, Switzerland. About $10 billion have gone into the accelerator's construction, the particle detectors and the computers, said Katie Yurkewicz, spokewoman for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which is host to the collider.

Big Bang Machine 'Absolutely Safe'

Big bang machine 'absolutely safe'

Scientists insist the most powerful particle accelerator ever built is "absolutely safe".

Concerns have been voiced over the £5 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which will be switched on this Wednesday

The machine, to be based underground on the Swiss-French border, will smash protons - one of the building blocks of matter - into each other at energies up to seven times greater than any achieved before.

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.

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.

Scientists believe microscopic black holes might be generated in the machine. But according to the predictions, they will blink in and out of existence before anything scary happens.

Prof Rossler believes it is quite possible that the black holes made in the LHC will grow uncontrollably and "eat the planet from the inside".

But Particle physicist Dr James Gillies, a spokesman for the project, said: "We have received a lot of worried calls from people about it.

"There's nothing to worry about, the LHC is absolutely safe, because we have observed nature doing the same things the LHC will do. 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".

Japanese physicists aim to unlock universe's mysteries

A worker shows the facilties of the world's largest scale synchrotron 500m in diameter which produces neutrons and neutrino and can be used for research materials and life science at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) Tokai Research and development center at Tokai village in Ibaraki prefecture As the world's scientists try to unzip mysteries about the universe, Japan is set to open its largest atomic science park to study the world at its smallest level

Electrons discover their individuality

Electrons between cooperative (coherent) and egocentric behaviour: If an electron is catapulted out of a nitrogen molecule at relatively low speed, it behaves cooperatively. The waves are sent out like a pseudo pair from both atoms and are superimposed (a). This also remains the case so if one of these electron waves is scattered off the atom (b). On the other hand, an electron behaves egocentrically or like an individual if it leaves the molecule quickly (c). If the electron now hits the adjacent atom and is scattered by it, it recognizes from which atom it started and superimposes itself on its scattered wave. Image: Fritz Haber Institute / Uwe Becker

This Week in Physics History: September 1 - 7

Sept. 1, 1804 -

German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovers Juno, one of largest asteroids in the asteroid belt.

Sept. 3, 1905 -

American experimental physicist Carl David Anderson is born. Anderson would receive the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the positron.

Sept. 5, 1906 -

Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann dies. Part of the illustrious Boltzmann family, which permeated nineteenth century European intellectual life in mathematics & the sciences, Ludwig is best known for his work in statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. He strongly advocated atomic theory, well before it was popular to do so.

Sept. 3, 1976 -

U.S. spacecraft Viking II arrived on Mars, landing at Utopia Planitia, and took the first pictures of the planet's surface. Viking II was, of course, an unmanned spacecraft.

Sept. 2, 1992 -

The first automobile powered by natural gas is purchased. Fifty of these alternative fuel vehicles were purchased and put into service by the Southern California Gas Company