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CERN

After years of construction, $8 Billion, dozens of set backs and an effort that has included some of the smartest minds in particle physics from across the globe, CERNs new Large Hadron Collider is expected to come online this summer.


LHC

To get an idea of the scale of this project, the LHC measures 17 miles around, is buried 100 meters beneath the Swiss Alps and some of the pieces of the 6 experiments slated to be conducted in this facility weigh over a ton, and need to be lowered into the lab by a network of 5000 large magnets.

Among other tasks, this marvel of modern engineering will hopefully help us get a closer look at the origins of the Universe. Using it, scientists will be able to recreate conditions that existed in the periods just after the Big Bang. By seeing these interactions, they could get a better understand of the forces that shaped our world.

That’s the good news.

The project is not without controversy, however, including some who say that the LHC is a Doomsday device that might destroy the planet by creating Earth consuming mini-black holes or generate strangelets — hypothetical particles with the not so pleasant ability to turn normal matter into “strange matter” and transform the Earth into a hot lump of unpleasantness. These opponents went as far as filing a lawsuit to try to get the project stalled.

While they take the safety issues seriously, scientists at CERN are certain that the Apocalypse is still a ways off and the project is still planned to start crunching data this summer.

Other major contributions that CERN has made to the world include:

  • The World Wide Web. Which started as a CERN project called ENQUIRE.
  • Grid Computing. CERN hosts several major grid computing hubs.
  • W and Z bosons. As well as a host of other major discoveries in particle physics.

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