So, what is the LHC anyway?

So what is going on at CERN which is the headquarters of the biggest experiment in the world called the LHC (Large Hadron Collider)?

CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) was established in 1958 by 11 countries in Western Europe, on the Swiss/French borders with the aim to unlock the secrets of what is inside atoms and indeed, what is inside the building blocks of Atoms, namely the protons and electrons. Some of you might remember that physics lesson where you were learning about the periodic table and atomic mass. I know, I know, but stay with me.

Back in the day when CERN was built, research was carried out colliding electrons at ever greater speeds. However, smashing electrons together was never going to uncover the secrets of atoms or the universe and there was a need to build a bigger collider. One which could accelerate Protons around the 27 km tunnel to speeds within a fraction of light

In order for this to take place, CERN had to spend 20 years researching and developing the super conducting magnets, detectors and computing power which was required to run this experiment. The LHC is the fruit of this labor. It can not be stressed enough how complicated the LHC is. The particle accelerator is aligned to tolerances of less then a micron and uses computing power that makes the World Wide Web look like a Texas Instruments calculator. It generates petabytes of information which will take decades to fully analyze. It is truly the most amazing machine ever built.

Today the LCH is finally working. This means that experiments which are hoped to uncover exotic particles such as the Higgs Boson will take us one step closer to understanding the beginning of the universe and perhaps, the very reason we are here in the first place. And if you ask if we need this sort of research then remember that the internet was invented at CERN as a way to share information.

Listening to Frank Wilczek describe his research, one might not recognize simple English words, for they assume unfamiliar meanings in the context of physics. The deceptive lexicon of particles, forces and equations includes “up,” “down,” “flavor,” “color,” “strange,” “everything,” and the compelling “beautiful.” Rigorous science is conveyed in poetry and metaphor.