Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Large Hadron Collider

Our understanding of the Universe is about to change...Countdown starts in quest to pierce secrets of Universe... accelerate sub atomic particles to speed of light...

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.

Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe. For decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only experimental data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge, and those who dare to dream beyond the paradigm.
LHC
LHC- The Large Hadron collider

Indian Connection: Professor SN Bose, Satyendra Nath Bose was an internationally renowned Indian physicist. His best known work was on quantum mechanics which he put forward in the early 1920s. This paved the way for the formulation of what is known as Bose- Einstein Statistics and the theory of Bose- Einstein Condensate. The particle bosen is named after him. Because of his contribution to Einstein’s theory of relativity, Professor Bose was popularly known in Bengal, his homeland, as ‘Einstein Bose’. The first test in LHC is in honour of Bose who had predicted particle "Boson" known by his name.
Indian connection to Big Bang experiment

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