Big Bang experiment on; LHC smashes protons, record

London, March 30: A new era began for the scientific community on Tuesday as the much delayed ‘Big Bang’ experiment kicked off successfully after a delay of 18-months. The protons have been successfully collided inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva and the experiment has been declared successful.

“This is physics in the making, the beginning of a new era, we have collisions at 7 TeV (teralectronvolts),” said Paola Catapano, a scientist and spokeswoman at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, referring to the record energy levels achieved.

The $10 billion Large Hadron Collider directed the beams into each other Tuesday as part of its ambitious bid to reveal details about theoretical particles and microforces.

Inputs from Indian scientists in the form of machine parts were taken as well.

Scientists at a control room at the CERN broke into applause when the first successful collisions were recorded. Their colleagues from around the world were tuning in by remote links.

The collider, which occupies a 17-mile (27km) circular tunnel 100m beneath the French-Swiss border, accelerated two counter-rotating beams of protons to an unprecedented energy of 3.5tn electron volts (TeV) last week.

The experiment known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will try to collide particles at the highest energy level to create microscopic bursts of energy in a bid to recreate or rather mimic the conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. The beams will be crossed for the first time in the highest-energy man-made collisions ever.

Earlier, according to a report in The Guardian, operators of the LHC had set Tuesday morning as the moment the machine will attempt to steer speeding particles into head-on collisions, creating microscopic bursts of energy that mimic conditions that existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

The experiment was first initiated on Sep 10, 2008. Just nine days later on Sep 19, 2008 the experiment hit a massive road block as freezing helium gas leaked out. This led to the experiment being delayed for over a year.

Repair work and extra protection systems cost the laboratory 24 million pounds.

The machine was designed to collide two 7 TeV beams of protons, but laboratory managers decided in January to operate the machine at half power until the end of 2011.

Big Bang Theory

The LHC or the Big bang experiment is one of the biggest scientific endeavours ever undertaken. It is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.

According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as “singularity” around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a “singularity” and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don’t know for sure. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist at the core of “black holes.” Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure. The pressure is thought to be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept which truly boggles the mind). These zones of infinite density are called “singularities.” Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something – a singularity. Where did it come from? We don’t know. Why did it appear? We don’t know.

After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the “Big Bang”), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity which appeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown. This is the Big Bang theory.

-Agencies