In 2007 I blogged about the Large Hadron Collider after seeing a great documentary about it by the BBC. For those who do not know what the Large hadron Collider is: it’s an experiment in which scientist try to recreate the circumstances surrounding the Big Bang to see if they can isolate the so-called “God particle” that gives this universe it’s shape. I have also blogged about the somewhat myhtical year 2012 when some people predict the world as we know it, will end. So what about the 2010 then? Well, a lot of doomsday predictions involve the LHC. Some people believe that this piece of equipment will be the end of the world as we know it by creating a black hole or by opening a door to an alternate reality or dimension. The truth is that even scientists seem to differ in opinion about what might happen.
Well, if you do believe in these kind of predictions, then by the end 2010 the apocalypse might be on us. Because 2010 is now the year in which the scientists think they will be able to conduct “the final experiment”.
Originally the LHC was going to start up in November 2007. But due to some initial setbacks that became 2008. But in 2008 when CERN tried to start up the LHC again, they ran into some problems. In fact the LHC got damaged (see photos below) which set back the whole timetable for all experiments. CERN now plans to start the LHC up again in November this year (2009), starting it with at an energy of 3.5 TeV (or trillion electron volts) per beam. If that works out, they will then slowly ramp things up to 5 TeV per beam, before going at a full blast of 7 TeV per beam by the end of 2010 (official CERN press release).
If you ask me all sorts of fascinating things might happen!
BBC Horizon documentary about the LHC
Damaged LHC (2008)
CERN brochure: understanding the LHC
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