The first particles have been injected into the largest particle accelerator on the planet, marking the start of the countdown to probing the secrets of the universe.
Scientists are powering up the machine, many people are worried that it could destroy all life on Earth by sucking it into a black hole.
Earlier this month, the successful injection of the first particles - protons
A test on September 10th 2008 will circulate a particle beam through the whole LHC. On October 21st 2008 the first particle beam collision will take place
The
Large Hadron Collider (
LHC) is the world's largest particle accelerator complex, intended to collide opposing beams of 7
TeV protons. Its main purpose is to explore the validity and limitations of the Standard Model, the current theoretical picture for particle physics. This model is known to break down at a certain high energy level.
The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and lies under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is the world's largest and the highest-energy particle accelerator. It is funded and built in collaboration with over eight-thousand physicists from over eighty-five countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.
The collider is currently undergoing commissioning while being cooled down to its final operating temperature of approximately 1.9 K (−271.25 °C). Initial particle beam injections were successfully carried out between 8-11th August 2008, the first attempt to circulate a beam through the entire LHC is scheduled for September 10, 2008, and the first high-energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled, on October 21, 2008.
When activated, it is theorized that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and "missing links" in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify three of the four known fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force, leaving out only gravity. The Higgs boson may also help to explain why gravitation is so weak compared to the other three forces. In addition to the Higgs boson, other theorized novel particles that might be produced, and for which searches are planned, include strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles and supersymmetric particles.
