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Latest update: 11/09/2008
- Switzerland - universe
Big Bang test begins amid media glare
Scientists on the Franco-Swiss border have launched their experiment to recreate the Big Bang in a giant machine called the Large Hadron Collider. The $9 billion experiment aims to find answers about how the universe was created.
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See Vicky Morgan's account from the CERN control room.
Particle physicists were jubilant on Wednesday after the long-awaited startup of a mega-machine designed to expose secrets of the cosmos passed its first test with flying colours.
Cheers, applause and the pop of a champagne cork -- rather than the cataclysmic suck of a black hole, as doomsayers had feared -- marked the breakthrough at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
Robert Aymar, the organisation's director general, hailed it as a "historic day" for CERN and mankind's thirst for knowledge.
Humans have "a quest for (knowing) where they came from and where they should go, whether the Universe will end, and where the Universe will go in the future," he said.
Just after 0730 GMT, the first proton beam was injected into the Large Hadron Collider (LHV), a massive built 100 metres (325 feet) underground at CERN headquarter.
The mission aims at resolving some of the greatest enigmas in physics: whether a so-called "God particle" exists that would account for the nature of mass; an explanation for "dark matter" and "dark energy" that account for 96 percent of the cosmos; and whether other dimensions exist in parallel to our own.
In a 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) circular tunnel on the Swiss-French border, parallel beams of protons will be accelerated to nearly the speed of light.
Superconducting magnets will then steer the counter-rotating beams so that strings of protons smash together in four huge laboratories, fleetingly replicating the conditions that prevailed at the "Big Bang" that created the Universe 13.7 billion years ago.
Arrays of detectors will trace the sub-atomic rubble spewed out from the collision, looking for signatures of novel particles.
CERN scientists have dismissed fears that the process could create a "black hole" whose super-gravity would swallow the Earth.
Wednesday's startup marked the start of a long and cautious commissioning process to check equipment and operational procedures before these collisions can get underway.
The first batch of protons was halted, sector by sector, to verify that monitoring systems and the steering magnets were working properly. Their speed was purposely slowed for the inspection process.
The clockwise beam completed this first test lap in under an hour, causing an eruption of joy and an outbreak of bubbly in the control room.
"No-one would have imagined that this could have been done in less than an hour. It's phenomonenal, quite unbelievable," an operator told AFP. "We are very happy and proud."
By comparison, the predecessor to the LHC at CERN, the Large Electron Positron (LEP) collider, took 12 hours to achieve the same goal.
A test of the anticlockwise beam would take place later on Wednesday, scientists said.
LHC Project Leader Lyn Evans, who has been working on the collider for 14 years, said he felt a wave of relief after the protons had completed their first lap so smoothly.
"It's a machine of enormous complexity and things can go wrong at any time," he said.
Messages of congratulations flooded in from CERN's partners and rivals, including the legendary Fermilab particle physics lab near Chicago.
The LHC took nearly 20 years to complete and at six billion Swiss francs (3.76 billion euros, 5.46 billion dollars) is one of the costliest and most complex scientific experiments ever attempted.
When all is ready, the LHC will whizz two parallel beams, one clockwise and the other anticlockwise, around the tunnel at up to 11,000 laps per second before steering them into collisions into four chambers whose walls are swathed with detectors.
The first collisions are likely to start in several weeks, but only next year will the LHC be cranked up to its full capacity of 14 teraelectronvolts -- a massive amount of energy -- or seven times the record held by Fermilab.
Over the 10-15 years in which will the LHC will operate, masses of data will spew from these collisions and will be scrutinised by physicists around the world.
"It's about acquiring knowledge for humanity about the behaviour of fundamental matter," physicist Daniel Denegri told AFP. "We expect to make discoveries that could be rather spectacular."
The Holy Grail will be finding a theorised component called the Higgs Boson, which would explain how particles acquire mass. Believed to be ubiquitous -- yet also frustratingly elusive until now -- the Higgs has been dubbed the "God particle."
The giant machine was several times over its initial budget and began operations two years late.
Before the startup, Internet-driven rumours said the LHC would create black holes or a nasty hypothetical particle called a strangelet that would gobble up the planet.
CERN commissioned a panel to verify its safety calculations and France also carried out its own assessment.
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Comments (22)
big bang- great idea
are you people just super religious freaks or what?!! this experiment could turn out to be the greatest achievement in the history of man, if anything to prove that the notion of creationism is a crock, and while yes society will go nuts over it, it would provide limitless knowledge to the construction of our home, and could potentially give us some insight as to how exactly suns work (you know, harness the fusion, which would probaly be our salvation (not saying its going to happen, but if it did...) and quit overreacting about this black hole thing... we are talking some of the greatest minds on the planet... you think they are going to take an awesome risk like that if no ones going to be around to learn from it.... NOT.... THIS COULD CHANGE OUR SOCIETY TO A TRULY PEACEFUL AND INTELLEGENT RACE THAT DOES NOT NEED RELIGION!!!!
Big Bang should be stoped
The money that they spent on the big colider should be spend on finding new ways of energy to eliminate all the nuclear planta and other coal powered electrical plants. We should be worried about future of our children and not how to create something that we do not know its consequences. The planet is being destroyed every day we should invest money in preserving forests and make earth more greener.
Also all behind this experiment could be something else that the scientists do not tell us so we do not panic. Since there is a big talk about earth changing its magnetic pols they are creating something to revers it. We will never know. People with money and power keep secrets from people like us. they do one thing and tell us something else and we beleive. People trust media too much these days and whatever we hear that is what we beleive. The truth is never reviled.
THE WORLD WONT END!!!
Why must we focus on the negative side of things, imagine the knowledge we could gain from this experiment. We could learn the secrets of the universe. And I'm sure if we were not meant to tamper with the big bang some superior intergalactic force would've stopped us along time ago.
So yeah........................MORE KNOWLEDGE
nonononono
these ppl are right!!! we really shouldn't be fooling around with stuff that could possibly destroy the earth...there are some things that ppl shouldn't know and this is one of them!!! in my point of veiw it's very interesting but extremley dangerous....im only 15 and i graduate in the yr of 2012 i seriously would like to grow up and live my life...these scientist's should really consider stopping this experiment before it get's out of hand....honestly i would rather die now...then everyone on earth being killed by this stupid experiment...please stop before it's to late...
OMG!
this is an amazing experiment.....but why cant they try it some place else? some where that humans cant be hurt? how about another planet that;s usless..........
you're all idiots
ok seriously, who, in their right mind, would preform an experiment that could potentialy wipe out the human race?! no one. Some one should lock up these crazies before they kill themselfs and all of us. We get that youre curious, but seriously, use your brain. dont take it out on us.
sience testing the big bang
i honestly think that this is a big breakthrough and i find it very fascinating that they are doing this.
if the world ends, the world ends...
it must be the plan for the world if a black hole is created.
i would love to know what happened during the big bang and how everything was created.
and if it works successfully imagine the knowledge we get out of it!
plz stop this nonsense and let us live our life
no no no....we dont want to start a machine which will finish us.....we just ant to live.....if you don't want to live, then please commit a suicide and let others live....why punishing others for no reason
Shubham bhutani
recreating the big bang,
Okay, I don't believe any of the religious nuts or mayans or anyone else that says that December 20,2012 is the day the earth will be destroyed but I do find it interesting that they are supposed to slam these particles together at the beginning part of November and a lot of scientists are saying a small black hole could potentially (because they grow) swallow the entire earth over time...they speculate 50 months....which if you do a little math takes us right towards the end of December, 2012......kinda freaky eh?
Big Bang is dumb
i mean like why are they doing this experiment.
we dont want to die from this experiment causing a so called "black hole"
and they say its going to be okay for the little black holes that would be made near France
its like... do we want to know what is going to happen??
we'll get to figure out as we live on life and not by a scientific experiment that could ruin our life on earth
i mean id rather live to the day where the world ends
not the end of the world made by a scientific experiment made to tell that
then does that mean that if they figure out that "thing"
then do we need to all die??
its just plain dumb how they want to "re-enact" the big bang!!!!
just dumb
More LHC stuff
Ok, maybe I overstated a bit on my last post but I was shocked at the idea of anyone trying something so foolish. To believe that man could contain the big bang in a huge machine is ludicrous. Lunacy. Superiority complex gone wild. Anyways I hope you scientists realize that this is a colossal mistake before someone does kill you all. It would be sad to lose any scientific minds. But tests like these must be stopped now and forever.
lnc
if scientists really believed that the universe came from the big bang, then the LHC experiment is going to create another universe. This will be the end of civilisation. Someone should stop this madness.
Large Hadron Collider
Are you guys absolutely insane!!?? The idea that man could control the 'big bang' is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard of. Why not try and contain several nuclear blasts in a small coffee can? Because it can't be done.
I seriously wish someone would either
1) Lock up the culprit forever
2)Send them to a mental institution where they are held in bed in restraints for the rest of their lives.
The Hadron Collider is just the biggest damn bomb ever built. Let's not set it off.
And further more who cares what started the universe? Not me and not most guys. Some things are not meant to be toyed with.
Ever heard of pandora's box? This could be it.
The fact that a small group of obviously insane men can try such a thing is totally insane!!!!
It's time for the survivalists of the world to go into action and end this charade once and for all. Everyone should do everything in their power to end this before it's too late.
Whatever you hope to discover is NOT WORTH ENDANGERING HUMANITY.
I have a young son who I want to grow up and lead a normal life. You Hadron collider boys had better stop all of the tests before the 'real' crazies of the world start coming after you. I hope they come after you will all the guns blazing. If they did kill you all it would the best for everyone. I feel like you guys are going to take my life and my son's life so as far as I am concerned it's open warfare time and you guys are going to be the casualties.
You are NOT HELPING MANKIND. Better start looking over your shoulders so you can see it coming.
Billion pounds of rubbish
What a waste of money! These idiotic scientist should have rather have given bono the money to feed ten starving countries for one year and saved over a million lives. Damn fools, so what if your forefathers were apes!put yourself in a cage with a baboon and tell me if you like it!
perfct logic i the gap
ok, well, eeehm, actually we do not kow what is going to happen, you know, because the theory is pretty ut it does not work completely. More exact, it contains huge gaps. BUTTTT, we definitely know exactly, because this is our supa warpy-exact theory (yes, that with the gaps), that nothing dangerous in any sense will happen. And if there will be a ck hole, you must believev me, the theoy (yes, that one from before) is telling absolutly exactly, is miniminiminimini-small, just to slip-slide through earth. This in any case tells the theory, from which we know that it could be wrong. We just are guessing all the time. So, question: In the state of complete ignorance, when it might come or note, what is the chance for sth very bad going to happen: 50% ?
Stop
This is unbelievable and out of control. Are you trying to completely end mankind once and for all? Why would someone feel the urge to test something so out of control and out of our knowledge that could end up in human distinction. Absolutely OUTRAGEOUS. There is a point where science interferes far too much and this has been taken to its absolute limit. Just stop, it's ridiculous.
Idiots!
I don't know how anyone could put the earth in danger like this. If you think it could bring the end of the world, DON'T DO IT! There are some people on this earth who want to live without fear, and I'm one of them.
The end of the world won't come until the book of revelations has been completed in action.
The scientists and the supporters are complete and utter idiots.
God
Why not take God's word for it and take ths money and help people who need health care and are starving around the world. 29
nonono!
no no no no no !! i donot think they should even think of recreating the big bang. If they know there is even a slight possibility that it might create a black hole , why try something so dangerous? why take the risk and then kill basically....... the whole universe!! this is a bad idea .
Big Bang
They've run smaller tests before and nothing bad happened we just weren't able to create the moment the big bang happened, but it is not likely that a black hole will be created and swallow us all, though it is a possibility, but odds are against. Any way if it does create a black hole will die so quickly we won't feel anything so it's okay.
Experiment
Hello:
How much the LHC cost in U.S dollars? When will they send the proton at full speed(99.99 of speed of light) in oposite direction?
Also don,t you need more energy as proton approct the speed of light as it's mass increase or resistance increase. Mass becomes infinent as it apprich 99.99% of c.
LHC
CERN and others involved persons can only speculate what will happen in this experiment. We only know by our current knowledge that Black holes will not be created by this Hadron Collider. There is a possibility, If these particles fuse with enough force, that microscopic black holes may be created. These may not have the potential to "Swallow" the Earth, however CERN cannot say that there is no chance whatsoever.
We learn new things all the time in physics and mathematics, many times these new dicoveries contradict old ones. NO ONE, can say with 100% certantity that this experiment will work as intended, or have, or not have catastrophic consequences. I hope for the sake of Physics, and the $9 billion that could have gone into charity, that we do find these so called "God Particles", which may lead to a new viable and practical energy source.
Another argument; why could we not have put $9 billion into Nuclear Fusion research? Nuclear Fusion has the potential to power the world for a million years! But of course we all know understanding the begining of the universe ie. re-creating the past, is more important than the future.
I pesonally do not think that the LHC is a pending apocalypse, but still there is always that chance...