More than 30,000 people are expected to visit what’s described as the world’s biggest scientific experiment today when the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) opens its underground doors for just one day before trying to unravel the secrets of the universe.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator ever constructed, is located in a 27km circular tunnel 100m below ground level just outside Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border.
It has taken almost 15 years and cost US$8 billion to construct. CERN, already famous as the birthplace of the Internet, is now poised to try to unravel the secrets of the universe and recreate what happened a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, the point at which scientists say the universe was created.
“We are extremely excited about our experiment. It is the biggest experiment in the world and we hope we are going to understand all sorts of things like the origin of mass and what is the dark matter in the universe,” theoretical physicist Malcolm Fairbairn at CERN said.
The project will recreate what happens in nature all the time by sending protons crashing into each other.
The main difference is that this time there are powerful detectors set up to monitor exactly what happens.
“It will be highest energy that man has ever created, but the key word is man, because in nature protons are smashing against each other all the time at much higher energies than those of the LHC,” Fairbairn said.
The LHC is inside a tunnel forming a 27km circle and is the world’s largest piece of laboratory equipment.
Inside, protons, the smaller particles found in an atom, will be sent smashing into each other traveling at the speed of light, reaching an unprecedented energy level.
The experiment has provoked opposition.
Two scientists from Hawaii have lodged a challenge at a Honolulu court, claiming the accelerator could create a black hole that could destroy the Earth and even the universe.
Walter Wagner, who runs a botanical garden on Hawaii’s Big Island, and Luis Sancho, a Spaniard, have asked for an injunction to prevent CERN from starting up the LHC until further safety assessments have been carried out.
Fairbairn said the experiment only replicated what was happening in nature all the time.
“If there was any weird stuff happening, it would already be happening all the time when cosmic rays hit the Earth. So that’s why we are not scared and we can quantify all these experiments mathematically,” Fairbairn said.
Today is the only chance for the public to get a glimpse of LHC before it is activated.
The number of visitors is limited to 15,000, but organizers said there are many activities on the surface at access points to the ring to keep visitors occupied.
RALLYING CRY: Former US president Donald Trump has raised suspicions about why Chinese migrants are going to the US and advocacy groups worry about his rhetoric The US Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday said that it sent 116 Chinese migrants from the US back home in the first “large charter flight” in five years. The flight, which happened over the weekend, comes as Chinese immigration has become the subject of intense political debate in the upcoming US presidential election. “We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. The department said it was working with China to “reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt
SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTE: The Philippines prefers to handle operations on its own, and would exhaust all possible options before asking for help, the military chief said The Philippines has turned down offers from the US to assist operations in the South China Sea, after a flare-up with China over missions to resupply Filipino troops on a contested shoal, its military chief said. Tensions in the disputed waterway have boiled over into violence in the past year, with a Filipino sailor losing a finger in the latest June 17 clash that Manila described as “intentional high-speed ramming” by the Chinese coast guard. The US, a treaty ally, has offered support, but Manila prefers to handle operations on its own, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief General Romeo Brawner told
Georgian student Elene Deisadze was browsing TikTok in 2022 when she stumbled across the profile of a girl, Anna Panchulidze, who looked exactly like her. Months later, after chatting and becoming friends, they both separately learned they were adopted, and last year decided to take a DNA test. It revealed they were not only related, but identical twins. “I had a happy childhood, but now my entire past felt like a deception,” said Anna, an English student at university. Far from an innocent case of separation at birth, the sisters are among tens of thousands of Georgian children who were
Prominent activist Joshua Wong (黃之鋒) yesterday asked for a lesser sentence in court after he earlier pleaded guilty in Hong Kong’s biggest national security case. Wong was one of 47 activists charged in 2021 under a Beijing-imposed National Security Law with conspiracy to commit subversion for their involvement in an unofficial primary. The activists were accused of attempting to paralyze Hong Kong’s government and topple the territory’s leader by aiming to win a legislative majority and using it to block budgets indiscriminately. Wong and 44 others admitted their liability or were convicted by the court. They could be sentenced to life in