Earth & Sky

World's largest atom smasher by late 2007

Bigger is better if you're looking for smaller. The Large Hadron Collider is being constructed by CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.

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To hear a 10-minute podcast with Phillip Bryant and Albert DeRoeck, press the “listen” button above.

The world’s largest atom smasher is scheduled to begin its operations in late 2007. It’s called the Large Hadron Collider, and it’ll accelerate subatomic particles to near light speed in the effort to answer fundamental questions about our universe and ourselves. What are we made of? Where do we come from? What is our place in the universe?

The Large Hadron Collider will be run by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which calls itself “the world’s largest particle physics laboratory.” Among other things, CERN scientists hope to find an as-yet unseen particle called the Higgs boson, nicknamed the God particle.

This particle – known officially as a Higgs boson – is thought to be responsible for the physical property of mass in the universe. Earth & Sky’s Jorge Salazar spoke with CERN scientists Phillip Bryant and Albert DeRoeck at the 2007 Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science about the world’s biggest atom smashers and the search for this elusive particle.

Written by Jorge Salazar