CERN's New Particle Accelerator Promises Window on Big Bang
Published:
25 July 2004 y., Sunday
Scientists probing something as big as the origins of the universe sometimes need equipment to match. At the European nuclear research center CERN in Geneva, they're building the most powerful particle accelerator ever. The Large Hadron Collider, as it's called, is expected be able to recreate the conditions that existed at the time of the Big Bang, when the universe was born. Scientists say they hope the new tool will help them unravel the mysteries of matter and energy, and confirm or demolish existing theories.
Contrary to what its name implies, the Big Bang was not necessarily an explosion. Scientists consider the Big Bang to be more of a marker to note that the universe had a beginning. It is the moment in which the universe, space and time were created. CERN Physicist Richard Jacobsson says scientists do not know why or how the Big Bang occurred. But big particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider help them to understand the process.
When the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is completed in 2007, the superconducting magnets in the machine will operate at 271 degrees, just above absolute zero. However, Mr. Jacobsson says that the temperature created in the proton-proton collisions will be one billion times hotter than at the center of the sun.
Some 6,500 scientists from more than 80 countries currently collaborate on hundreds of ongoing experiments at CERN. The world's biggest particle physics laboratory is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Šaltinis:
voanews.com
Copying, publishing, announcing any information from the News.lt portal without written permission of News.lt editorial office is prohibited.
The most popular articles
The European Commission announced today the award of three of the six contracts for the procurement of Galileo’s initial operational capability.
more »
Switzerland’s leading telecoms firm has sparked a war of words by announcing its first concrete move onto the lucrative market for digital television services
more »
China has formally declared its Enhanced Video Disc (EVD) format the national standard for digital video discs
more »
SAP Labs Budapest to Employ Around 300 Highly Skilled Professionals for the Service Enablement and Continuing Innovation of the mySAP(TM) Supply Chain Management Solution
more »
LUKOIL Vice-president Leonid Fedun is negotiating the purchase of a 50-percent stake in Germany's Ruhr Oel GMBH company
more »
A large blast near the southern port city of Dailam in Iran was the result of "geophysical exploration" in the oil-rich area, a local official in the Bushehr province said
more »
Environmentalists have been celebrating the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol
more »
POLAND ISSUES US$15M LOAN TO SUPPORT PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION IN UZBEKISTAN
more »
Europeans are still failing to show world leadership in technology and research, a new report shows
more »
Data storage companies Toshiba and SanDisk announced a new flash memory chip designed to address the growing use of large media files
more »
Research at the heart of the country's biggest ever investment plan
more »