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29 March 2024

Big experiment is bang on target

The collider in its tunnel at the CERN lab near Geneva. (AP)

Published
By Alexander G Higgins

The world's largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons around a 27km underground ring yesterday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.

After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 0826 GMT (12.26 UAE time) indicating that the protons had travelled the full length of the $3.8 billion (Dh13.95bn) Large Hadron Collider – described as the biggest physics experiment in history.

"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap. Champagne corks popped in labs as far away as Chicago, where contributing and competing scientists watched the proceedings by satellite.

Physicists around the world now have much greater power to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to learn about their structure. "Well done, everybody," said Robert Aymar, Director-General of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), to cheers from the assembled scientists in the collider's control room at the Swiss-French border.

The organisation began firing the protons – a type of subatomic particle – around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier.

Now that the beam has been successfully tested in a clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the big bang, which scientists theorise was the massive explosion that created the universe.

"My first thought was relief," said Evans, who has been working on the project since its inception in 1984. "This is a machine of enormous complexity. Things can go wrong at any time. But this morning has been a great start." He did not want to set a date, but said he expected scientists would be able to conduct collisions "within a few months".

The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel. Scientists hope to send two beams of protons through two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space. The paths of these beams will cross, and a few protons will collide. The collider's two largest detectors – huge digital cameras weighing thousands of tonnes – are capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.

The experiments could reveal more about "dark matter", antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle – the Higgs boson – which is sometimes called the "God particle" because it is believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe. The supercooled magnets that guide the proton beam heated slightly in the testing, leading to a pause to recool them before trying the opposite direction.

The start of the collider came over the objections of some who feared the collision of protons could eventually imperil the earth by creating micro-black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars. "It's nonsense," said James Gillies, Chief Spokesman for CERN.

CERN was backed by leading scientists like Britain's Stephen Hawking who declared the experiments to be absolutely safe. Gillies said the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel. Nothing of the sort occurred yesterday, though the accelerator is still a year away from full power. The project has attracted researchers from 80 nations. (AP)

FINDING THE ELUSIVE PARTICLE

The British scientist who gave his name to the so-called "God Particle" said he believes it will be found by the world's biggest atom-smasher, which was fired up yesterday.

"I think it's pretty likely," said Professor Peter Higgs a few hours after the Large Hadron Collider was switched on at CERN below the Franco-Swiss border.

"The way I put it is that if there isn't anything there, then it means I and a lot of other people no longer understand all the things we understand about these weak and electromagnetic interactions," added the 79-year-old.

Physicists have long puzzled over how particles acquire mass. In 1964 Higgs, came up with this idea: there must exist a background field that would act rather like treacle. Particles passing through it would acquire mass by being dragged through a mediator, which theoreticians dubbed the Higgs Boson. The standard quip about Higgs is that it is the "God Particle" – it is everywhere but remains frustratingly elusive.

Higgs, speaking in Edinburgh where he formulated his theory 44 years ago, said the idea came to him over a weekend, rather than instantaneously. (AFP)