Large Hadron Collider

European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has made a historical step forward in its quest to know how the universe was created. The world’s largest particle collider successfully passed its first major test on September 10, 2008. It fired a beam of protons all the way around a 07-mile tunnel. The deep tunnel is under the surface of the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva. It is supposed to be the next great step to understand the make-up of the universe.
Over 8,000 scientists from 85 countries, including 30 from India and hundreds of universities participated in the experiment.
After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10.26 a.m. (1356 IST) . They indicated that the protons had travelled clockwise along the full length of four – billion Swiss franc (Rs. 16,340 crore; US $ 3.8 billion) Large Hadron Collider (LHC) . It is described as the biggest physics experiment in history. It took 14 year of work and $ 10 billion in funds to conceive the massive project . The LHC is designed to study the effects of collisions between very small particles – smaller than atoms. They should travel at nearly the speed of light . This is why it is called LHC. ‘Hadron’ because the particles it used (protons) belong to a class of subatomic particles known as hadrons and ‘Collider’ because it will smash these particles together.
However , the world’s newest and largest particle accelerator, LHC will not begin operations again until April 2009. Scientists said a faulty electrical connection between magnets was to blame for a large helium leak which caused the LHC to be shut down on September 18, 2008. owing to a fault with its cooling system.