Large hadron collider is the best model of intelligence of man regarding science. It is the biggest and most complicated machine ever made in the history. This has the basic function of locomotion of protons, near to the speed of light. Observing the results and consequences, we’ll have under the collision of these protons. This machine has been built by a European institute, named CERM with the help of many other countries, universities and thousands of scientists.
CERN, whose complete name is European Organization for Nuclear Research, was inaugurated by some European scientists at the end of Second World War in 1954. Its goal is to understand the universe at the very basic level, including the questions about the reasoning of formation & interaction of fundamental particles. CERN which started as a small laboratory in 1954, is now the biggest particle physics laboratory of world. It is situated on the border of Geneva, Switzerland, and France. Its buildings are on the both sides of the border. It has 20 European countries as its members.
As a laboratory of particle physics, the function of CERN is to understand fundamental particles, from which electrons, protons and neutrons are generated. Further to which better comprehension and justification of laws of nature is also included. For this, CERN requires particle accelerators which help protons, electrons etc. to move with relativistic speed. These highly accelerated particles are collided, consequently basic particles are formed from which electrons & protons are produced. These basic particles are Quarks and Leptons, as these particles are really small in size, and therefore special digital detectors are used for the detection and observation of them.
Large hadron collider is the most modern particle accelerator, which has been built at the cost of 8 to 10 billion dollars to find out the answers of most important questions in physics. The suggestion for this project was given in 1980’s and was approved in 1994 by CERN council. This great model of science and technology completed its construction in 2008. It was formally initiated at 10th September 2008 with locomotion of one beam of protons being done inside it successfully. This is an underground circular tunnel, which has circumference of 27km. it has been dug 100m inside of the earth on both sides of the border of France and Switzerland.
There are 9300 superconducting magnets being used inside of it, which provided the protons with the energy of moving within 99.9% of speed of light. On this speed, a proton will complete its one cycle around the tunnel of 27 km in 90 microseconds. Likewise protons will complete its 1100 cycles in one second. Protons will have 6 million collisions among them in one second altogether. The temperature has been cooled down to -271 celsius for these superconducting magnets to work. To make this temperature possible 60 tons of liquid helium and 10,080 tons of liquid nitrogen is being used. Accordingly the temperature here will only be 2 degrees above Absolute Zero, making LHC the coldest place not only on earth but in the whole universe.
In LHC two beams of protons will be circulated in opposite directions and every beam will have the energy of 7 Tere Electron Volt. Then these beams coming from the opposite directions will be collided and the energy of this collision will be 14 TeV. Consequently so much temperature will be generated that this temperature will be greater than the inner temperature of sun. It will be the hottest place of our galaxy but this temperature will be concentrated in a very tiny space, like the size of a proton having very small magnitude. Here the main goal is to produce those circumstances which were there in the one thousandth of a second right after the Big Bang. By artificially providing these circumstances of that time, we’ll be able to find out the qualities and properties of particles, which were present immediately after the big bang.
Ultrahigh vacuum is produced in the accelerator for the prevention of collision of protons with gas molecules which will be like the interstellar space. There are detectors specially designed to work efficiently with highly accelerated particles at very little periods of time and space. Then for the observation and analysis of this recorded data and information, a distributed network of computers will be used.
But what will be the benefit of constructing a machine this bigger in size and complex in functions? What will be the result of consistent hard work and adversities of two decades? How many satisfied answers will we get from the questions arisen in the process of this series of experiments? These are the natural questions, which emerge in the mind of a reader. The hopes of scientists associated with LHC can be divided into five vast constituents, which are about the five theories of physics.
First of all we’ll study the expected outcomes of big bang theory. According to this theory our universe is increasing in its size with passage of time. So if we look in the past, we’ll find the universe much smaller. Likewise if we go back 14 billion years ago, then we’ll observe that our universe was almost of the size of a dot. At that time matter did not exist as it exists today, in the shape of protons, electrons, neutrons, atoms and molecules. At that time universe started to expand with an explosion. Temperature was also too much then, which started to cool down very slowly, converting the matter into present state with having too much different properties than at the time of being generated. In LHC, scientists will try to understand the process of formation of electron, proton and neutron by producing the conditions present at a few milliseconds after big bang. In addition to which they’ll try to understand why the mass of protons and neutrons is more than Quarks and Lepton combined, from which these particles are made.
Another important theory named String Theory will be tested here through different experiments. If its results will be in accordance with this theory’s predictions, then these experimental proofs will be very important for this theory. According to this theory, the fundamental particles of nature are made from very tiny strings. This theory says that there are 11 dimensions. In which three are of space, one is of time and seven others are additional. These dimensions are very small and curved but very tiny particles can go into them. If some particles or energy will disappear because of collision of protons, as string theory predicts it to move to the extra dimensions then this will be the proof of existence of additional dimensions.
Third important theory is the standard model of physics which explains clearly the properties of particles discovered yet and it also explains the causes of interaction between them. But this is not a complete theory. It does not explain the relation between gravitational force and other natural forces. For this scientists are waiting for such demonstrations which will provide them a key to understand further than the current progress in unification of natural forces. Further adding to this, existence of particle named Higg’s Boson or God’s particle is very important. This particle hasn’t been discovered yet, a big number of scientists are quite hopeful that LHC will be triumphant in the discovery of this particle. This particle is very important for understanding those reasons because of which other particles supposedly gain mass.
Fourth theory is about Dark matter (non-luminous material postulated to exist in space). In agreement with Astrophysics 96% of universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy. Its significant property is that electromagnetic force does not affect it. But it interacts with common matter through gravitational force. LHC also aims to find out the fundamental particles of dark matter but many scientists do not have many expectations for that.
Fifth important theory, on which experiments of LHC will shed some light, is Multiverse Theory. It says that there are infinite universes rather than just one. But presently scientists have low expectations to find a proof for such a theory.
Some scientists have shown concern that the experiment may create miniature black holes which would shallow the earth. But most scientists are dismissing this intimidate as nonsense. The fact is that to create a black hole which will be able to destroy the earth, a minimum critical mass of 30% of mass of sun that contains 99% mass of the whole solar system is required. Only one percent is distributed to all planets, naturally the share of earth is very low. Therefore, it’s impossible to create as much energy on earth as is required to create a black hole.
On September 20th, LHC encountered a technical fault and it had to be shut down for some time. Reportedly, the huge magnets of the world’s largest ‘atom smasher’ over heated 10 days after the start of LHC. Scientists are currently trying to fix the problem and planning to restart the experiment within a few weeks. Though the experiment has been suspended for some time, it’s not over yet. Let us hope to find the answers to the great questions discussed above in near future.
