Source: The Times.
Beneath the foothills of the Jura mountains, in a network of tunnels that bring to mind the lair of a crazed Bond villain, scientists will fire a first beam of particles around a ring as long as the Circle Line on the London Underground. This colossal circuit, 17 miles (27km) in circumference,
In the years ahead it will recreate the high-energy conditions that existed one trillionth of a second after the big bang. In doing so, it should solve many of the most enduring mysteries of the Universe.
This extraordinary feat of engineering will accelerate two streams of protons to within 99.9999991 per cent of the speed of light, so that they complete 11,245 17-mile laps in a single second. The two streams will collide, at four points, with the energy of two aircraft carriers sailing into each other at 11 knots, inside detectors so vast that one is housed in a cavern that could enclose the nave of Westminster Abbey.
The mountains of data produced will shed light on some of the toughest questions in physics. The origin of mass, the workings of gravity, the existence of extra dimensions and the nature of the 95 per cent of the Universe that cannot be seen will all be examined. Perhaps the biggest prize of all is the “God particle” – the Higgs boson.
“What we find honestly depends on what’s there,” said Brian Cox, of the University of Manchester, an investigator on one of the four detectors, named Atlas. “I don’t believe there’s ever been a machine like this, that’s guaranteed to deliver. We know it will discover exciting things. We just don’t know what they are yet.”
“The beam is 2mm in diameter and has to be threaded into a vacuum pipe the size of a 50p piece around a 27km loop,” said Lyn Evans, the LHC’s project manager, who will oversee the insertion. “It is not going to be trivial.”
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