Scientists In State, Worldwide Await Results Of Large Hadron Collider Scientists in Connecticut and around the world will be watching closely today when their colleagues in Switzerland flip the switch on what is being touted as the world's grandest experiment in particle physics.
If all goes according to plan, the Large Hadron Collider, a gigantic particle accelerator underground near Geneva, could re-create the very moment 13 billion years ago when scientists believe a tremendous explosion known as the "big bang" created the universe. "It could be the most exciting thing since Einstein," said Yale Professor Paul Tipton, part of a multinational research team, including physicists at Yale and Fairfield University, that has spent years designing and building the collider. Data collected in the coming months has the potential to lead to the discovery of new dimensions, a new understanding of time and space, or advances that could someday be applied to fields such as medicine or energy generation, said Tipton and other scientists. By working at unprecedentedly high energy levels, the collider will, in effect, provide the ultimate in back-to-the-future information, researchers said. "It is in a sense a time machine to look back to the earliest moments of creation and to be able to explain the present state of the universe and to predict its fate," said David Winn, chairman of the physics department at Fairfield University. He spent 15 years working on the project. More at: http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-cthadron0910.artsep10,0,6923966.sto ry ~(^^)~ Avelino