Large Hadron Collider Started
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008The big bang experiment (biggest experiment for human race) started at 9.30 am local time. Scientists have switched on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the device they hope will unravel some of the remaining mysteries of the universe.
The £5 billion machine has been described as a 17-mile racetrack around which two streams of protons - building blocks of matter - run in opposite directions before smashing into one another. Reaching 99.99 per cent of the speed of light, each beam will pack as much energy as a Eurostar train travelling at 90 mph.
The flashes from the collisions may help scientists reproduce the conditions that existed during the first moments after the Big Bang at the birth of the universe.
Some of the useful link about the experiment-
- Full coverage of the Large Hadron Collider atom smasher
- Watch: How the great machine will work
- Watch: Large Hadron Collider workers’ rap is YouTube hit
Physicists hope to learn more about the origins of mass, gravity, universe and mysterious dark matter.
German chemist Professor Otto Rossler claims that black holes created by the LHC will grow uncontrollably and “eat the planet from the inside”. These claims have been dismissed by leading scientists, including Prof Stephen Hawking who said that the LHC is “feeble compared with what goes on in the universe. If a disaster was going to happen, it would have happened already.”
After the switch-on first stream of subatomic particles (Hadrons) circulating in the tunnel. First collisions are expected in 30 days. The LHC will produce beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more when it reaches its design performance, by 2010.
