Physics in a Minute: The Biggest Machine in the World, LHC

What is it?

There are a few mysteries of the Universe that humans have never had the ability to test directly. Until now. The Large Hadron Collider is the largest machine in the world and it took a thousand scientists over 20 years to build. Imagine running around a ring that is over 16 miles long, then imagine how fast you’d have to be running to make 11,000 laps every second. Now imagine someone else running the same speed in the opposite direction crashing into you. That’s basically what is going to be happening with the particles inside the LHC.

The LHC is located on the border of France and Switzerland.

Why are they doing it?

Scientists are trying to unlock great mysteries by breaking particles down into the fundamental building blocks that make up our Universe. A couple of years ago, this same machine helped scientists witness for the first time a particle called the Higgs Boson which was theorized over 50 years ago leading to a Nobel prize.

Now they’re hoping to recreate the conditions that existed at the time of the Big Bang so that we can figure out what makes up the mysterious “Dark Matter.” 

Why should you care?

In the next few months, we might get to learn secrets of the Universe including how it started, what makes up the 96% of the Universe we don’t understand (Dark Matter), how the future of the Universe will unravel, and if there are more dimensions than the 4 we can currently perceive (time is the 4th). Maybe it won’t affect your daily life, but this knowledge could shape the future of the human race. NBD.

For more information, visit the official website at home.web.cern.ch/topics/large-hadron-collider.