[infoshare] Our understanding of the Universe is about to change...
- From: "Luis Guerra" <brl50sky@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "InfoShare" <InfoShare@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:23:54 -0400
The Large Hadron Collider
Our understanding of the Universe is about to change...
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near
Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m
underground.
It is a
particle accelerator
used by physicists to study the smallest known particles - the fundamental
building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from
the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.
Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' - either protons or lead
ions - will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator,
gaining
energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the
conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at
very high
energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles
created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of
experiments
dedicated to the LHC.
There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but
what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the
new
accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the
workings of the Universe. For decades, the
Standard Model
of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding
the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only
experimental
data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge
forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge,
and those
who dare to dream beyond the paradigm.
Copyright CERN 2008 -
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/
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