The Large Hadron Collider – the world’s largest and most expensive particle accelerator – was finally switched on yesterday, kicking off the search for the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle” that is believed to give all particles their mass.
While some physicists have expressed concernes that the LHC could create one or more black holes that would consume the planet, the overwhelming consensus is that this is not going to happen. Nevertheless, several scientists, from Germany to Hawaii, filed lawsuits to prevent the LHC from being activated – without success.
Further tests scheduled for later this year and early 2009 will see the LHC powered up to full functionality, with multiple particle beams being fired simultaneously. Will the $9 billion device unlock the mysteries of the universe and propel human scientific understanding into the future? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, it’s still pretty cool.
EDIT: Also, it’s huge. To give you an idea, here’s a picture of qwantz reader and CERN physicist Kristen in the belly of the beast.
Filed under: Tech, news | Tagged: black holes, CERN, Higgs boson, Large Hadron Collider, LHC, particle accelerator
Looking at that first image, I am reminded of Helios from Deux Ex. How odd.
Excellent summary, 6… all it seems to lack is a Super-Colliding-Super-Button reference.
You’re right. I’ve failed! D:
http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/
http://fhmashdscsb.ytmnd.com/
Really Rusty? YTMND?
Really?
eh. it was the best Super-Colliding-Super-Button link available.
What a tremendious project
they r working on
Lets see what they get
Pah! As you can all see, the LHC is perfectly safe. There’s no real possibility that it will generate a black hole. I mean, you can even see the thing working through their web cam feed – there’s nothing happening.
hmm… that wan’t promising. Hopefully there was someone working there named Osterman.
also: it appears as though there are problems. Not world-destroying problems, technical problems. Looks like a 2 month delay…