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Wednesday is the Big Day! Countdown starts in quest to pierce secrets of Universe
Tomorrow is the big day! The most complex scientific experiment ever undertaken, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will accelerate sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light and then smash them together, with the aim of filling gaps in our understanding of the cosmos.
Particle physicists believe they will throw open a new frontier of knowledge on Wednesday when, 100 metres (325 feet) below ground, they switch on a mega-machine crafted to unveil the deepest mysteries of matter.
It may also determine the outcome of novel theories about space-time: does another dimension -- or dimensions -- exist in parallel to our own?
After nearly two decades and six billion Swiss francs (3.76 billion euros, 5.46 billion dollars), an army of 5,000 scientists, engineers and technicians drawn from nearly three dozen countries have brought the mammoth project close to fruition.At 9:30 a.m. (0730 GMT) on Wednesday, the first protons will be injected into a 27-kilometre (16.9-mile) ring-shaped tunnel, straddling the Swiss-French border at the headquarters of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).
Whizzed to within a millionth of a percent of the speed of the light, the particles will be the first step in a long-term experiment to smash sub-atomic components together, briefly generating temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the Sun in a microscopic space.
It has the power to smash protons or ions -- particles known as hadrons -- together at a whopping 14 teraelectron volts (TeV), seven times the record held by Fermilab's Tevatron.
The leviathan scale of the project is neatly juxtaposed by its goal, which is to explore the infinitely small.
If this sounds difficult to convey to students, you can relax because the CERN engineers and scientists put together a catchy and technically accurate rap song that you can show your students to celebrate the big event! Thankfully, the words to the song are on the bottom of the screen and they expalin what is happening and what CERN is trying to accomplish. Bravo CERN!
World's biggest atom-smasher: Mission profile
Following is a mission profile of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's biggest atom-smasher, which is due to start operations on Wednesday:
- Hunt for the HIGGS BOSON, a theorised particle that would explain why other particles have mass. Confirming the Higgs would fill a huge gap in the so-called Standard Model, the theory that summarises our present knowledge of particles. Over the years, scientists have whittled down the ranges of mass that the Higgs is likely to have. But they have lacked a machine capable of generating collisions powerful enough to to confirm whether this so-called God particle really does exist.
- Explore SUPERSYMMETRY, the notion that a whole bestiary of related but more massive particles exists beyond those in the Standard Model. Supersymmetry could explain one of the weirdest discoveries of recent years -- that visible matter only accounts for some four percent of the cosmos. Dark matter (23 percent) and dark energy (73 percent) account for the rest. A popular theory is that dark matter comprises supersymmetric particles called neutralinos.
- Investigate the mystery of MATTER AND ANTI-MATTER. When energy transforms into matter, it produces a particle and its mirror image -- called an anti-particle -- which holds the opposite electrical charge. When particles and anti-particles collide, they annihilate each other in a small flash of energy. According to conventional theories of the cosmos, matter and anti-matter should exist in equal amounts, but the puzzle is that anti-matter is rare.
- Replicate the earliest moments after the BIG BANG that created the Universe. At its primal stage, matter existed as a sort of hot, dense soup called quark-gluon plasma. As it cooled, sub-atomic particles called quarks clumped together to form protons and neutrons and other composite particles. The LHC will smash heavy ions together, briefly generating temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the centre of the Sun and freeing quarks from their confinent. The researchers can then see how the liberated quarks aggregate to form ordinary matter.
The CERN atom-smasher: A factfile
Here is a snapshot of the world's biggest atom-smasher, due to start operations on Wednesday at CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) near Geneva:
-- The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will accelerate hydrogen protons or lead ions to more than 99.9999 percent of the speed of light. The experiments will take place in a ring-shaped tunnel 27 kilometres (16.9 miles) long and up to 175 metres (568 feet) below the ground. The tunnel stretches out from Swiss territory and into France, looping back into Switzerland.
-- The beams run in parallel in opposite directions. Powerful superconducting magnets then "bend" the beams so that streams of particles collide within four large chambers. The smashups will fleetingly generate temperatures 100,000 hotter than the Sun, replicating the conditions that prevailed just after the "Big Bang" that created the Universe 13.7 billion years ago.
