Answers to life’s questions or life extinguished in a microsecond?
Final preparations are underway for the long-anticipated startup of the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator.
The Geneva based scientific facility comprises 27 kilometres of underground tunnels being utilised for recreating conditions the universe experienced just after the Big Bang.
This is an attempt to study dark matter, which is believed to make up up to 96 percent of the universe. The first attempt to get a beam running will be on the 10th of September this year.
The equipment will finally be cooled to its ideal operating temperature of 1.9 Kelvin or -271 degrees Celsius. Experiments will run from the due date but it is only expected to reach peak operating capacity some time in 2010.
There have been some concerns that starting the LHC will end life on Earth in an instant.
Scientists have dismissed this claim, saying that it is perfectly safe.
Brett Venter
