Will We Discover How The Universe Began?
Particle Collision Many scientists believe that the Large Hadron Collider is the answer to how the universe formed. This machine races particles around an oval track at almost the speed of light and smashes them together to try and learn about what new particles are created. The newly created particles disappear so fast that it takes a computer and special cameras to be able to see them. The machine is located in Switzerland, right outside Geneva. Did you ever wonder why it is called the LARGE Hadron Collider? The reason is that everything about it is huge. It works on magnets and one electromagnet is almost 2,000 tons. To put this in perspective, the Eiffel Tower only weighs about three times the weight of the magnets used in this device. The price was huge, it was almost 9 billion dollars and the size is huge, being connected to an oval track that is 16 miles long. The track at the Daytona 500 uses a 2.5 mile oval for high speed runs, a 3.56 mile sports car course and a 2.95 mile motorcycle course.
Hadron Collider Magnets I can't help but wonder how the scientists operating this monster, with its related side experiments that use caves and shafts, expect to find out how something could come from nothing, after all isn't that the puzzle of creation? Somehow it doesn't seem that the human mind will ever be able to grasp this. The reason for this is that either something always existed, which hurts our brains even to think about because the concept is so foreign to us, or that in the beginning nothing existed which then begs the question of how did everything get here when there were no materials to create anything from? When we look at the Collider we realize that even as big as it is, nothing flying around in it surpasses the speed of light. Could it be that if we can figure out how to break light speed it will change the dynamics of what happens when particles crash? There are a few that believe that time is connected to the speed of light somehow and if particles crash that are exceeding the speed of light, unexpected things might happen both in particle creation and in time. Wouldn't it be bizarre if we found that speeding up certain particles and then crashing them together at greater than light speed might somehow create a gateway for time travel? It is believed that time travel and speed are tied together, but that seems to apply more for traveling into the future. Can you imagine crashing two particles together and suddenly your entire facility is somewhere else in time?
1960s Era Accelerator Another benefit of being able to accelerate particles faster than the speed of light would be to show that Einstein was wrong and we can travel faster than the speed of light. This would open the door to all sorts of faster than light space travel. Would it be possible to not only travel much faster than light but also use wormholes as short cuts thus being able to travel to other galaxies with blazing speed? Could we travel so fast that we could travel through a black hole without being damaged? There are just so many possibilities here. I have always thought that if the speed of light was broken, it would be in the area of computing and data transfer which would then lead to faster spaceship engines. Once you are in space, it doesn't take a lot of power to travel from place to place or from planet to planet. What if those scientists in Switzerland do discover how the universe was created? What next, will they go out and try and create more, or will some general say,” wow what a great weapon this would make”? Remember Star Trek and the Genesis Device? That was a device that could create life on a planet, but to do it, it had to destroy any life that was there already. Not only that, but the planet became unstable and tore itself apart after awhile. The Klingons wanted the device to use as a weapon, much as the militaries of this planet would. That always seems to be the problems with these types of experiments, sometimes even if good comes out of them, so does no good, if you know what I mean? This huge Collider is not the only game in town. There are some more that are spread around. I bet that you can't guess how many there are in the world? Hold on to your hats, their are about 26,000 accelerators worldwide, but most of them are below the energy level of 1 GeV. About 1% of all these machines are above that mark. Of all these machines, only about 9% are used for industrial processing and research, while another 4% are used for biomedical and low-energy research. The rest are used for medical reasons and ionization. Beams of particles can be produced from these machines and the militaries of the world are all interested in creating particle beam weapons, so while it is not talked about much, I am sure that some of these experiments are also ongoing on these machines. It turns out that there are many different kinds of particle accelerators and the giant one in Switzerland is only one type of many. There are high energy ones, low energy ones, Electrostatic Particle Accelerators, Oscillating Field Particle Accelerators, Linear Particle Accelerators and Circular Or Cyclic Particle Accelerators, to name some of the other types. Particle Accelerators have been around for about 80 years. Linear Particle Accelerators accelerate particles in a straight line with a target at the end. Circular Or Cyclic Particle Accelerators send particles moving in a circle while they build up energy. Oscillating Field Particle Accelerators can accelerate particles either in a line or circle depending on need. Electrostatic Particle Accelerators use static high voltage to accelerate particles. Will all these machines be tied into some sort of network someday, like our computers are on the Internet, and solve the mysteries of the world? You never know. |
