Large hadron collider – tomorrow when the world began…
Wednesday will not be like any other normal Wednesday. At least at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) it won’t. Wednesday is when the large hadron collider gets switched on. The large what?? A great big machine for winding up very small particles very very fast and smashing them into each other. If that sounds like a rather strange thing to do, it may be. But it also may be the start of a project that could just unveil the secret of matter itself and the start of the universe from the Big Bang.
While there have been rather fanciful stories circulating about how when the machine gets switched on, the world will be swallowed by a black hole – that, according to Dr Brian Cox, is plain nonsense.
The LHC will be dealing with such small particles that the energy produced by the collisions would barely power a small light globe, but it may just reveal where all the universe’s energy actually comes from.
Here’s hoping anyhow – it’s great to see that there are still enough scientific visionaries to do big science. Good luck guys!
Cheers
Jerry
