How does the large hadron collider

That's just the tip of the particle physics iceberg , though. There are even more exotic and counterintuitive things the LHC might turn up. Like what? Find out in the next section. By smashing protons together hard and fast enough, the LHC will cause protons to break apart into smaller atomic subparticles. These tiny subparticles are very unstable and only exist for a fraction of a second before decaying or recombining with other subparticles.

But according to the Big Bang theory , all matter in the early universe consisted of these tiny subparticles. As the universe expanded and cooled, these particles combined to form larger particles like protons and neutrons. If theoretical particles, antimatter and dark energy aren't unusual enough, some scientists believe that the LHC could uncover evidence of other dimensions. We're used to living in a world of four dimensions -- three spatial dimensions and time. But some physicists theorize that there may be other dimensions we can't perceive.

Some theories only make sense if there are several more dimensions in the universe. For example, one version of string theory requires the existence of no fewer than 11 dimensions.

String theorists hope the LHC will provide evidence to support their proposed model of the universe. String theory states that the fundamental building block of the universe isn't a particle, but a string. Strings can either be open ended or closed. They also can vibrate, similar to the way the strings on a guitar vibrate when plucked. Different vibrations make the strings appear to be different things.

A string vibrating one way would appear as an electron. A different string vibrating another way would be a neutrino. Some scientists have criticized string theory, saying that there's no evidence to support the theory itself. String theory incorporates gravity into the standard model -- something scientists can't do without an additional theory.

It reconciles Einstein's theory of general relativity with the Quantum Field Theory. But there's still no proof these strings exist. They are far too small to observe and currently there's no way to test for them. That has lead to some scientists to dismiss string theory as more of a philosophy than a science.

They are looking for signs of supersymmetry. According to the standard model, every particle has an anti-particle. For example, the anti-particle for an electron a particle with a negative charge is a positron. Supersymmetry proposes that particles also have superpartners , which in turn have their own counterparts. That means every particle has three counter-particles. Although we've not seen any indication of these superpartners in nature, theorists hope that the LHC will prove they actually exist.

How much power will it use? How much did it cost to build? Many of the scientists working with the LHC project readily admit that they aren't sure what will happen when the machine starts to work. That's because there's never been a particle accelerator as powerful as the LHC. The best any scientist can do is provide an educated guess. Several of the scientists also claim they'd be happy if the evidence the LHC generates contradicts their expectations, as that would mean there'd be even more to learn.

The Large Hadron Collider is a massive and powerful machine. It consists of eight sectors. Each sector is an arc bounded on each end by a section called an insertion. The LHC's circumference measures 27 kilometers The accelerator tubes and collision chambers are meters feet underground.

Scientists and engineers can access the service tunnel the machinery sits in by descending in elevators and stairways located at several points along the circumference of the LHC. The LHC uses magnets to steer beams of protons as they travel at The magnets are very large, many weighing several tons.

There are about 9, magnets in the LHC. The magnets are cooled to a chilly 1. That's colder than the vacuum of outer space.

Even a single molecule of gas could cause an experiment to fail. There are six areas along the circumference of the LHC where engineers will be able to perform experiments. Think of each area as if it were a microscope with a digital camera. The LHC and the experiments connected to it contain about million sensors.

Those sensors will collect data and send it to various computing systems. On a yearly basis, this means the LHC will gather about 15 petabytes of data. A petabyte is a million gigabytes. It takes a lot of energy to run the LHC. CERN estimates that the annual power consumption for the collider will be about , megawatt hours MWh.

It could have been much higher, but the facility will not operate during the winter months. Why cool the magnets down to just above the temperature of absolute zero? At that temperature, the electromagnets can operate without any electrical resistance. The LHC uses 10, tons 9, metric tons of liquid nitrogen to cool the magnets down to 80 degrees Kelvin Then it uses about 60 tons 54 metric tons of liquid helium to cool them the rest of the way [source: CERN].

The principle behind the LHC is pretty simple. First, you fire two beams of particles along two pathways, one going clockwise and the other going counterclockwise. You accelerate both beams to near the speed of light.

Then, you direct both beams toward each other and watch what happens. The equipment necessary to achieve that goal is far more complex. Before any protons or ions enter the LHC, they've already gone through a series of steps.

First, scientists must strip electrons from hydrogen atoms to produce protons. These machines use devices called radio frequency cavities to accelerate the protons. The cavities contain a radio -frequency electric field that pushes the proton beams to higher speeds. Giant magnets produce the magnetic fields necessary to keep the proton beams on track.

In car terms, think of the radio frequency cavities as an accelerator and the magnets as a steering wheel. The beams continue to pick up speed. By now, beams have divided into bunches. Each bunch contains 1. Inside the LHC, the beams continue to accelerate. This takes about 20 minutes. At top speed, the beams make 11, trips around the LHC every second. The two beams converge at one of the six detector sites positioned along the LHC.

At that position, there will be million collisions per second [source: CERN ]. When two protons collide, they break apart into even smaller particles. That includes subatomic particles called quarks and a mitigating force called gluon.

Quarks are very unstable and will decay in a fraction of a second. The detectors collect information by tracking the path of subatomic particles. Then the detectors send data to a grid of computer systems. Not every proton will collide with another proton. Even with a machine as advanced as the LHC, it's impossible to direct beams of particles as small as protons so that every particle will collide with another one.

It consists of a kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. The LHC consists of a kilometre ring of superconducting magnets with a number of accelerating structures to boost the energy of the particles along the way. Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes — two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum.

They are guided around the accelerator ring by a strong magnetic field maintained by superconducting electromagnets. The degree of involvement varies between countries, with some able to contribute more financial and human resource than others. It was cheaper to build an underground tunnel than acquire the equivalent land above ground.

Putting the machine underground also greatly reduces the environmental impact of the LHC and associated activities. The rock surrounding the LHC is a natural shield that reduces the amount of natural radiation that reaches the LHC and this reduces interference with the detectors. Vice versa, the radiation produced when the LHC is running is safely shielded to the surroundings by 50 — metres of rock.

What they actually mean is:. CERN has never been involved in research on nuclear power or nuclear weapons, but has done much to increase our understanding of the fundamental structure of the atom. The title CERN is actually an historical remnant, from the name of the council that was founded to establish a European organisation for world-class physics research.

Firstly, CERN and the scientists and engineers working there and their research have no interest in weapons research. They are dedicated in trying to understand how the world works, and most definitely not how to destroy it. Secondly, the high energy particle beams produced at the LHC require a huge machine consuming MW of power and holds 91 tonnes of super-cooled liquid helium.

The beams themselves have a lot of energy the equivalent of an entire Eurostar train travelling at top speed but they can only be maintained in a vacuum. If released into the atmosphere, the beam would immediately interact with atoms in the air and dissipate all their energy in an extremely short distance. The LHC does produce very high energies, but these energy levels are restricted to tiny volumes inside the detectors.

Many high energy particles, from collisions, are produced every second, but the detectors are designed to track and stop all particles except neutrinos as capturing all the energy from collisions is essential to identifying what particles have been produced.

The vast majority of energy from the collisions is absorbed by the detectors, meaning, very little of the energy from collisions is able to escape.

Collisions with energies far higher than the ones in the experiment are quite common in the universe!