Largest superconducting solenoid magnet, one of the experiments preparing to take data at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider particule accelerator.
A photon source is seen in the CERN visitors' centre in Geneva-Meyrin, Switzerland.
A model of the Large Hadron Collider tunnel is seen in the CERN visitors' centre.
The LHC has been installed in a tunnel 27 km in circumference, buried 50-150 meters below the ground.
Picture taken March 22, 2007, near Geneva shows technicians assembling element of a layer of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon Solenoid).
Picture taken March 22, 2007, near Geneva shows technicians assembling element of a layer of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon Solenoid).
The giant magnet, weighing 1920 tonnes, rests 100 metres down the 27 km tunnel to provide a magnetic field for the giant particle detector.Theory : It is one of the biggest and most controversial experiments to be carried out in recent times. On September 10, a machine costing a staggering $7.75 billion (Rs 31,000 crore) will be fired up to recapture conditions not seen since the birth of the universe almost 14 billion years ago.The machine, located at CERN, a Geneva-based nuclear research lab, will carry on the experiment inside a 27-km tunnel deep beneath the French-Swiss border.
The news of the experiment has evoked resentment from some experts, who feel that such an experiment could cause the end of the universe.
The news of the experiment has evoked resentment from some experts, who feel that such an experiment could cause the end of the universe.
The Large Hadron Collider will fire particles around the tunnel. It will then smash protons -- one of the building blocks of matter -- into each other at energies up to seven times greater than ever achieved.LHC is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any previous machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design performance, probably by 2010.
It relies on technologies that would not have been possible 30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.Starting up such a machine is not as simple as flipping a switch. Commissioning is a long process that starts with the cooling down of each of the machine's eight sectors.
This is followed by the electrical testing of the 1600 superconducting magnets and their individual powering to nominal operating current.
These steps are followed by the powering together of all the circuits of each sector, and then of the eight independent sectors in unison in order to operate as a single machine.Once stable circulating beams have been established, they will be brought into collision, and the final step will be to commission the LHC's acceleration system to boost the energy to 5 TeV (Tera Electron volts, a unit of measuring particle accelerators), taking particle physics research to a new frontier. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.Experts hope to find answers to some of the biggest questions in physics such as why the universe looks the way it does and how to explain mass, gravity and mysterious 'dark matter'.
One of the leading figures behind the experiment is Dr Lynn Evans, the son of a miner, who said his fascination with science started as a boy, when he would create small explosions with his chemistry set at his council house in Aberdare.According to media reports, there are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what is for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the working of the Universe.
The LHC reproduces in the laboratory, under controlled conditions, collisions at centre-of-mass energies, less than those reached in the atmosphere by some of the cosmic rays that have been bombarding the earth for billions of years, says the Journal of Physics, allaying fears of the world being sucked into a virtual black hole created by the giant machine.
The people behind the experiment have also been flooded by telephone calls from worried people. According to the CERN, there is no basis for any concern about the safety of the LHC.
