That's a seven story tall detector called Atlas housed at CERN, the mysterious underground European laboratory (European Organization for Nuclear Research), and you'd be inside something called the Large Hadron Collider. Many towers like these (one weighing more than the Eiffel Tower), along with sensors like this,
will be used to examine the spray produced by collisions of hadron particles at almost the speed of light. Basically, they'll crash stuff together at high speeds and see what comes out.Remember Einstein and his theory of relativity? Remember the new and baffling theory of the space time continuum (Back to the Future?), in which two events can never be said to be simultaneous? Remember that, "Matter bends space; space directs how matter moves. Light is both a particle and a wave. Energy and mass are inter- changeable?" Remember that matter is constructed by atoms, that atoms are made of protons neutrons and electrons, and that protons and neutrons are made of quarks and gluons? The interactions between these particles are what sensors like these will examine. They have spent upwards of 5-10 billion dollars in order to examine these relationships and discover the makeup of our physical world. And it won't be long until the largest particle accelerator in the world will be turned on.
If you think this stuff doesn't matter, realize that the computer you are using uses microprocessors that function because physicists discovered the relationships that govern the odd things we call quarks, that the internet, the very instrument you used to access this site was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee, that these physical relationships govern your every move.
As magnets half the size of basketball courts guide particles around this 17 mile tunnel at almost the speed of light, one thing that scientists will be searching for is the so called Higgs boson particle (the God particle). What is this particle? Why look for it? Scientists want to answer the following questions:
"How does an infinitely dense universe become a vast and spacious one? And how is it filled with matter? In theory, as the early universe expanded, energy should have condensed into equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which would then have annihilated each other on contact, reverting to pure energy. On paper, the universe should be empty. But it's full of stars and planets and charming French villages and so on. The LHC experiments may help physicists understand our good fortune to be in a universe that grew with just enough more matter than antimatter." (National Geographic)
What is the Higgs boson?
"Most physicists believe that there must be a Higgs field that pervades all space; the Higgs particle would be the carrier of the field and would interact with other particles, sort of the way a Jedi knight in Star Wars is the carrier of the "force." The Higgs is a crucial part of the standard model of particle physics—but no one's ever found it. Different fundamental particles, he[particle physicist] says, are like a crowd of people running through mud. Some particles, like quarks, have big boots that get covered with lots of mud; others, like electrons, have little shoes that barely gather any mud at all. Photons don't wear shoes—they just glide over the top of the mud without picking any up. And the Higgs field is the mud." (National Geographic)
How fascinating are the relationships that take place within our very body, the physical properties that allow us to watch a good movie, enjoy a sweet kiss, or eat a good meal. Take a good look below the surface and the mundane becomes alive and beautiful. God created physical relationships that baffle us and should prompt us to worship. We have to build 10 billion dollar structures the size of the Eiffel Tower to delve into the smallest of physical components. Totally amazing and humbling.What do you guys think about spending so much money and resources on endeavors like this?
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