





The Large Hadron Collider will fire particles around the tunnel. It will then smash protons -- one of the building blocks of matter -- into each other at energies up to seven times greater than ever achieved.
It relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.
These steps are followed by the powering together of all the circuits of each sector, and then of the eight independent sectors in unison in order to operate as a single machine. Once stable circulating beams have been established, they will be brought into collision, and the final step will be to commission the LHC's acceleration system to boost the energy to 5 TeV (Tera Electron volts, a unit of measuring particle accelerators), taking particle physics research to a new frontier.
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.Experts hope to 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'
One of the leading figures behind the experiment is Dr Lynn Evans, the son of a miner, who said his fascination with science started as a boy, when he would create small explosions with his chemistry set at his council house in Aberdare.
According to media reports, there are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what is 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 working of the Universe.
The LHC reproduces in the laboratory, under controlled conditions, collisions at centre-of-mass energies, less than those reached in the atmosphere by some of the cosmic rays that have been bombarding the earth for billions of years, says the Journal of Physics, allaying fears of the world being ****ed into a virtual black hole created by the giant machine.
The people behind the experiment have also been flooded by telephone calls from worried people who fear the experiments could trigger earthquakes and could cause mini black holes that would destroy the world.
According to the CERN, there is no basis for any concern about the safety of the LHC.
CERN has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.