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Scientists to recreate the big bang today in Switzerland

jayr

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jayr Newbie

jayr

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Seems a bit risky if you ask me.

Article + Video: http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-cthadron0910.artsep10,0,6923966.story

Scientists in Connecticut and around the world will be watching closely today when their colleagues in Switzerland flip the switch on what is being touted as the world's grandest experiment in particle physics.

If all goes according to plan, the Large Hadron Collider, a gigantic particle accelerator underground near Geneva, could re-create the very moment 13 billion years ago when scientists believe a tremendous explosion known as the "big bang" created the universe.

"It could be the most exciting thing since Einstein," said Yale Professor Paul Tipton, part of a multinational research team, including physicists at Yale and Fairfield University, that has spent years designing and building the collider.

Data collected in the coming months has the potential to lead to the discovery of new dimensions, a new understanding of time and space, or advances that could someday be applied to fields such as medicine or energy generation, said Tipton and other scientists.

By working at unprecedentedly high energy levels, the collider will, in effect, provide the ultimate in back-to-the-future information, researchers said.

"It is in a sense a time machine to look back to the earliest moments of creation and to be able to explain the present state of the universe and to predict its fate," said David Winn, chairman of the physics department at Fairfield University. He spent 15 years working on the project.

Shedding light on the most basic building blocks of the universe at the moment it was born could help scientists understand what makes up the most fundamental elements of matter, which could lead to advances in medicine and other fields, said Chris Sanzeni, who worked on the project when he was a student at Fairfield.

Researchers don't expect major breakthroughs immediately. The European Organization for Nuclear Research expects to propel the first beam of protons through the accelerator today, but it is expected to take several weeks to reach top speed and start beaming back data to computers watching their every move.

Tipton likened the collider to a brand-new race car that won't be driven in fifth gear for at least a few months.

But even turning on the collider today has significance, said Keith Baker, a Yale physics professor who has been working on the project for 14 years.

"What happens [today] is exciting more from a social and a human point of view, and that is, a lot of people worked for a long time to make this thing work," he said. Some 2,300 scientists from 40 countries collaborated on the collider, work that often required bridging languages and currencies.

Baker said he plans to watch the collider turn on — remotely — so he can tell his grandchildren about it.

Construction on the 17-mile long tunnel 328 feet underground began 14 years ago and has so far cost $5 billion.

Scientists hope the collider will shed light on things that have eluded researchers, Baker said, things they have been unable to see in experiments or describe with current models of understanding. For example, the way scientists understand the big bang suggests that the expansion of the universe should be slowing, Baker said, but in fact, it is expanding and accelerating outward. So they are hoping what might explain this. Similarly, researchers know nothing about what accounts for the rotation curves of galaxies, he said.

Baker and his team are searching for something called the Higgs Boson, sometimes referred to as the "God particle." Scientists have theorized that the elusive Higgs Boson, if it exists, is what gives particles mass, but researchers have not found it. Baker has hopes that if it does exist, the Large Hadron Collider will help find it.

Tipton said he doesn't expect the information to produce anything directly; it won't bring about a brighter lightbulb in the next few years, he said. But he expects major things from the research. "Humans have never learned something and not used it," he said.

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bouche Apprentice

bouche

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Seems a bit risky if you ask me.

what do you know about physics? Don't believe more end of the world hype. If anything, another universe will be created in another dimension. And eventually, they'll create the same experiment, and another universe..... well, you see the pattern. It's the circle of life.

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jayr Newbie

jayr

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what do you know about physics? Don't believe more end of the world hype. If anything, another universe will be created in another dimension. And eventually, they'll create the same experiment, and another universe..... well, you see the pattern. It's the circle of life.

Physics vs. Logic seems to be a serious issue for me these days!

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Velvet Rookie

Velvet

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If the physicists are right then they can spend the next fifty years telling the world how right they were. If they are wrong our planet will get sucked into a vortex of unimaginable pressure destroying everything on the planet in an instant.

In which case no apologies will be sought or offered.

Just in case, I'd like to thank you all for being part of this crazy life.

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jayr Newbie

jayr

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Glad these people are in charge of this experiment:

One hour after starting up, on the first attempt to send the beam circling all the way around the tunnel, it completed the trip successfully—bringing raucous applause.

"First of all, I didn't believe it," said Verena Kain, a European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) engineer.

"I had to see it a second time, and I thought, Oh, wow, it actually worked!"

"Things can go wrong at any time, but luckily this morning everything went smoothly," said Lyn Evans of CERN, who oversaw the building of the accelerator.

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mattm Newbie

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I was talking to a guy at work here today about it and he says that the end of the world won't be right away. The machine might be on but it will take days to actually get the black hole and dark matter and new dimensions and all that fun stuff.

I think it's cool. Also, even if it does create a black hole, it will be very, very small which means there's a good chance it will only take out a country or continent, it shouldn't actually kill us over here (that will be the demons that come from other dimensions).

Just as an FYI, a black hole is not a "hole". It's matter so dense that it has an incredible gravity pull, so strong that even light particles get sucked to it but it does stop when it gets to it's own mass or something like that. In other words, a black hole created by this would only be a couple atoms big and therefore won't need all that much matter sucked to it to satisfy it before it stops. That's the theory anyway :) Also, don't post that I'm completely wrong on this since it is second hand knowledge that I'm retyping in my own words. I thought a black hole was an an actual hole to somewhere...

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