Scientists hope the world's most powerful atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, will unlock the secrets of the elusive 'God Particle' when switched on later this year.
Credit: CERN
PARIS: The boundaries of knowledge in particle physics look set to be broken soon with scientists around the globe locked in a multi-billion-dollar race to solve two great mysteries.
Their quest: find the secrets of dark matter and the 'God particle' - a sub-atomic particle that is fundamental to understanding the nature of matter, but so elusive that, physicists quip, it can only be compared to divinity.
Last week, an international consortium stepped up the pace by announcing in Beijing, China, a design for the world's most expensive atom smasher - the US$6.7 billion (AU$8.6 billion) International Linear Collider (ILC).
In a double tunnel 31 kilometres long, particle physicists would collide electrons and their antimatter opposites, positrons, at energies of 500 billion electron volts.
The scheme - which could be extended to 50 kilometres and a trillion electron volts - will hurl these particles at close to the speed of light.
The resultant collision could unlock dark matter and dark energy, the invisible, enigmatic substances that together are thought to comprise 96 per cent of the mass of the universe.
Engineering studies for the ILC will start later this year with the idea of making a decision in 2010 on whether to press ahead with building the machine. If all goes well, ground will be broken in 2012 and the collider itself will be fired up at the end of the next decade.
"The ILC probably represents the maximum that can be achieved with this type of technology," said Guy Wormser, head of France's Linear Accelerator Laboratory, who took part in the Beijing meeting.
Scientists in the U.S. and Europe, meanwhile, are grappling to be first to detect the most eagerly-sought particle in physics - the Higgs Boson. Construed in the 1960s by a British physicist, Peter Higgs, the Boson is thought to exist in an all-pervading field, giving all other particles their mass.
If the Higgs exists, it would fill a worrying gap in the Standard Model, the century-old notional structure for describing the fundamental nature of matter. But if the Higgs doesn't exist, it will be back to the drawing board.
The Europeans are months away from switching on the world's most powerful smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is being built at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland, using a 26-kilometre underground ring.
The LHC will whizz protons, which are far heavier particles than electrons, to energies of up to 14 trillion electron volts.
Until a few months ago, it seemed that the prize of the Higgs would almost certainly go to the LHC. It alone had the power to explore the theorised particle's mass, which was deemed to be a maximum of 166 giga-electron volts (GeV).
But researchers at the Tevatron collider, at the famous Fermilab facility near Chicago in the U.S., believe they could be in with a chance. New calculations suggest that the upper limit for the Higgs is 153 GeV, which is within the Tevatron's range.
Meanwhile, physicists at Stanford University in California said they have conducted an experiment that proves the viability of a low-cost collider technology called a plasma accelerator.
Instead of using a giant magnet and a huge tunnel to accelerate the particles, their accelerator uses a tunnel just three kilometres long to speed up a beam of electrons.
By passing the electrons through a cloud of ionised gas, or plasma, that is just one metre across, the team were able to double the particle's energy - a massive booster effect, they report in the British journal Nature.
Only a tiny fraction of the electrons in the beam were accelerated this way, though, and the beam itself is not 'concentrated' enough to get a good yield of particle collisions.
According to Wormser, "Plasma accelerators are a promising technology and may be the solution for the future, but on a timescale of 20 to 25 years at least."
you're an idiot
you're an idiot.
This website would concur - scary
An abstract of a longer paper, taken from the Risk Evaluation Forum website. "The Potential for Danger in Particle Collider Experiments ", March 2005
http://www.risk-evaluation-forum.org/anon1.htm
black holes on earth
what's the difference if a stable or unstable black hole gets created, it'll still swallow up the solar system. But honestly, that would be an amazing way for mankind to go.
I say who cares if it destroys the earth
We need to get on to the next phase anyway.Whoever wants to cling to life on earth does'nt want to evolve.I did notice that the particle smasher in China is due to be working in 2012.This just happens to be the predicted Apocolypse year by so many ancient prophets including the Mayans,Chinese,and Indians.
If the particle smasher causes the Earth to rotate it could cause all kinds of weather anomolies,earthquakes,sunamis etc.I'd love to see the world in chaos,however man has already brought the Earth to chaos presently.Anything else would be an improvement.Im ready for the afterlife,hell we are all gonna die anyway,why postpone the inevitable?
More than likely nothing will come of this experiment or if it does,the civilains won't be told the results,or the results will be fabricated in someway.If time travel where possible wouldn't we have met someone from the future by now?Or the past?
Anyway its all gonna play out like God wants it to period
He may or may not allow us the technology.
I was excited when I heard about this,because if something wacky happens as a result of this experiment it would break thru the boredom a little bit.Id love to see a black hole
Well i do
I do not believe that a black hole would appear, but that does not prevent me from loving life. I do not want to die by another's mistake or want to believe that life is so insignificant. You need to seek counseling. But I would also love to see a black hole, not in my face though.
Who cares?
Who says we have'nt met someone from the future. They would'nt tell us anything anyway, for fear of changing their own reality. If we destroy ourselves,somehow,with this atom smasher, their will be no further evolution. Look what God did to the people who tried to reach heaven with a tower. What do you think he'll do when we try to recreate creation. Not good.
Right
"Unstable" black hole? Please juxtapose that against a "stable" one. I'd be very interested in hearing your theories. (yes, that's sarcasm).
M Theory
Go research string theory now scientifically known as M Theory. It tells all. From the big bang and black holes to bosons and worm holes. In the science world its the new "pink". Honestly though, its the answers to all of sciences questions. No more quantum mechanics or electro magnetics. M Theory.
Unknown Matter
No one really knows what dark matter is, it could be anything. But smashing atoms together is pretty cool! You wouldn't find this topic being talked about on any parenting blogs. LOL
Dark matter was discovered
Dark matter was discovered some time ago by Wilhelm Reich but he called it Orgone Energy. Dr. Mercola had a interesting YouTube post on his side about it and you are rightit does fit the description of God.
Per Quantum Physics:
We are nothing more then interconnected consciousness and matter is nothing more than a form of energy.
In the late 19th century, science entered into the era of subatomic physics, which changed everthing. scientists discovered that the so-called 'subatomic particles' were not particles at all. They behaved like particles when they were measured but they traveled like waves.
Quantum theory has changed everthing, because what was a mechanical, external universe has now become a web of intelligence. Science fianlly admits that the simple act of observing changes the result of any experiment, and by extension, that the observer and the observed are not separate.
email me at bonnizan@gmail.com