CERN's New Particle Accelerator Promises Window on Big Bang

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.