large hadron collider

The biggest, most expensive experiment in history begins this week and is attracting both scientific hyperbole and hysteria. Some say it will reveal the universe's secrets and lead to the elusive Theory of Everything. A few fear that unleashing unimaginable power beneath the Swiss countryside will result in the end of the world. On Wednesday scientists will find out whether the LHC’s £3 billion cost has paid off.

The first beams of particles have already been successfully fired around nearly half of the 17-mile tunnel in Switzerland, where Cern (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) is based, as part of preliminary testing. If Wednesday’s start-up goes smoothly a second beam will be fired into the machine travelling in the opposite direction, with the two forced to collide. The products of those collisions could give physicists their best insight yet into the structure and origins of the universe.

The Big Bang is what they are trying to recreate. Or rather what happened a trillionth of a second after the universe was created by an explosion, 13.7 billion years ago. For that tiny moment, it is believed everything was molten plasma. This cooled to create everything we see around us. The hope is that by recreating that moment, in miniature, the scientists will be able to see things that are invisible now. Why though?

Well, the problem is that we don't have any real evidence for our theory of why things have mass. In 1964 Professor Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University predicted an unseen particle that provided mass, the Higgs boson. The hope is it will be detected for the first time and its detection may give us a Theory of Everything, the Holy Grail of science. This is a unifying theory providing one explanation for the forces at work in the natural world, from the nucleus of an atom to the movements of the planets. Sounds like alchemy to non-scientists, but some very respectable minds believe it is possible, and that the collider may show the way.

Some scientists, on the other hand, went to the European Court for Human Rights to try to stop the collider being turned on. They fear it may create a black hole, which would certainly violate our rights by sucking the planet into... well we don't really know, but it's probably not good news. Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith of Cern says: "The chance we produce a black hole is minuscule." Which is not all that reassuring. Or as Professor Brian Cox puts it, "anyone who thinks that the LHC is dangerous is a t--- ".

However, is it not entirely possible that a few seconds before the original big bang there may have been a group of eminent scientists stood around in an alternate universe waiting patiently for someone flick a switch and turn a very large particle collider on? In any case, they will only send the protons in one direction this week. The collisions start in October. Until then, at least, we're safe.

large hadron collider guide

official LHC website

scientifically correct LHC rap
I know physicists are excited about it, but a rap?