At about 10pm on 20 November (GMT +2) the CERN team issued a twitter update (I know, I know) to say that “We have captured it! First circulating beam of 2009!”  And the thing is still around. Soon, hopefully, the team will begin to collide beams, and that will be a momentous occasion in the history of human technology.  For the first time we have the means to understand what’s really at the bottom of everything.

(Click for a large gallery of awesome LHC images)

From the wikipedia article:

It is expected that it will address the most fundamental questions of physics, which seem to block further progress in understanding the deepest laws of nature.

Allow me to explain.  The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator in Europe.  Particle accelerators stream beams of protons (the large, positively-charged components of an atom) around a giant ring, surrounded by various measuring instruments.  This one is the biggest yet, at 27 kilometers long.  The idea is that when two opposing beams hit each other, each travelling at nearly the speed of light, the magic will happen.

Specifically, that magic is that the protons will bust apart and let us see what is inside.  They have all sorts of gizmos set up to see what comes out,  but what they’re really interested in seeing is something they’ve only dreamed of up until now: the Higgs Boson.  This is pretty much the smallest component of an atom, and we have a name for it only because we’re pretty sure it must exist.

The big deal about this thing, glamorized as ‘The God Particle’ in a Dan Brown book, is that seeing what it’s like will help to explain the origin of mass in the universe.

It will literally tell us why we are here.

It is the most fundamental question we can answer, and we will hopefully see it answered in our lifetime. And the implications of this answer for physics and technology will be earth-shattering.

The Large Hadron Collider was ludicrously expensive though, and has been plagued by troubles from day one.  In September 2008 they successfully circulated a beam, but then things broke.  In a scary way.  Liquid Helium, used to cool the thing down enough, climbed up the walls and literally ate shit. Then a bird dropped a goddamn baguette into an open grid, and shut the thing down for a few more months. I am not making this up.

However, despite some rocky progress and a serious paper suggesting that the universe may be so abhorrent to the Higgs boson being isolated that the little bugger travels back through time upon creation to damage the LHC, the machine is now up and running.

Ignorant Bleeding Heart Concerns:

There have been some people complaining that the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is going to blow up the planet or get us all sucked into a black hole or something.  The funny thing is, there is potential that really really tiny black holes could be formed. But as the article says, I wouldn’t worry about it.

However, if you are in fact concerned, there is a website where you can check for certain whether or not the Large Hadron Collider has destroyed the world yet: http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/. Stay safe.

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Norman Conquest