On this date (Sept 10) in 2008, there was a large gathering of uber-genius-types in Geneva, Switzerland. No, it wasn’t Swiss Comic-con… it was the inaugural powering up of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
CERN is a gigantic complex on the border between Switzerland and France. It’s the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. CERN is also the name of the international organization that operates the lab. CERN originally stood for Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire. In 1954, they changed the name to Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire. Eventually, as work at the lab began to delve more into higher energy particle physics, they unofficially changed the name again, this time to Laboratoire Européen pour la Physique des Particules. In order to perpetuate the ‘absent-minded professor’ stereotype, they maintained the CERN acronym even after the name changes…
The most important part of CERN is the Large Hadron Collider – the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. It lives in an underground tunnel that’s more than 17 miles in circumference. It’s a beast – with more than 1600 superconducting magnets, most of which weigh more than 25 tons. And they keep almost 100 tons of liquid helium on hand to cool them – which means that along with its distinction as the largest accelerator, LHC is also the largest cryogenic facility in the world.
Basically, the point of this monster is to hurl protons and other subatomic particles at each other – hoping that the resulting collisions yield information regarding some of the fundamental open questions in the world of physics: the interactions of elementary objects, the structure of space and time, the interrelation between quantum mechanics and general relativity, supersymmetry, etc. Many of the theorists involved predict that the Standard Model will be replaced with a more complete picture once some of this high-energy data is analyzed.
Of course, the biggest buzz surrounding the LHC revolves around the existence of the Higgs boson – a theoretical particle that, if found to exist, would prove the existence of the Higgs field. This field is the favored theoretical means by which particles acquire mass. In other words, yes, this boson does make your butt look fat.
There is a small amount of artifical controversy surrounding this theoretical particle. A Nobel Prize-winning physicist named Leon Lederman wrote a book called The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?. Thanks to him, people started calling the Higgs boson the God particle – specifically because it’s is both vitally important, and incredibly difficult to prove.
Because of this unfortunate naming association, some people have been protesting these experiments, calling them sacriligious, labeling the scientists as heretics – despite the fact that that this particle actually has no mystical associations attached to it.
This strikes me as amusing – since these same people have done so much to show how a zero-strength field can generate mass from empty space… call it the Kardashian Effect.
This past July, a previously unknown boson was discovered. Further study and analysis is taking place even now, but if it does prove the Higgs field, we’ll be hearing much more about it in coming months.
For now, let’s just say Happy Anniversary, LHC. And I’d like to nominate this song as its official theme song: Will It Go ‘Round in Circles… enjoy!