This week the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will break its own record for collision energy — what new things might it discover?
Two months after its launch, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will set a new record. As early as tomorrow, the world’s largest particle accelerator will unleash protons so that they will collide at previously unattainable energies.
“A new season has begun for physics”, CERN authorities declared last week.
CERN, or the European Center for Nuclear Research near Geneva, is home to the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a giant device housed in a 27-kilometer-long ring dug into the ground. The machine produces beams of protons that are let loose in opposite directions. When the protons reach speeds close to the speed of light and gigantic energies, they are collided with each other.
The collisions produce many other elementary particles. Their appearance is recorded by seven detectors placed at different locations in the tunnel. Scientists analyze the records of the collisions. In this way, they can study the smallest particles that make up the macroscopic world as we know it.
