Employees inspect the ATLAS detector construction (a Toroidal LHC Apparatus) at the the CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire) near Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday, May 31, 2007. The detector will be placed around the large hadron collider (LHC), CERN's highest energy particle accelerator. ATLAS is a general-purpose detector designed to measure the broadest possible range of particles and physical processes that could result from the collision of the proton beams within the LHC. A pilot run of the LHC is scheduled for summer 2007. (KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini)

Spectators look at the ATLAS detector construction (a Toroidal LHC Apparatus) at the CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire) near Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 31, 2007. The detector will be placed around the large hadron collider (LHC), CERN's highest energy particle accelerator. ATLAS is a general-purpose detector designed to measure the broadest possible range of particles and physical processes that could result from the collision of the proton beams within the LHC. A pilot run of the LHC is scheduled for summer 2007. (KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini)

Spectators look at the ATLAS detector construction (a Toroidal LHC Apparatus) at the CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire) near Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 31, 2007. The detector will be placed around the large hadron collider (LHC), CERN's highest energy particle accelerator. ATLAS is a general-purpose detector designed to measure the broadest possible range of particles and physical processes that could result from the collision of the proton beams within the LHC. A pilot run of the LHC is scheduled for summer 2007. (KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini)

View of the LHC (large hadron collider) in its tunnel at CERN (European particle physics laboratory) near Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 31, 2007. The LHC is a 27-kilometre-long underground ring of superconducting magnets housed in this pipe-like structure or cryostat. The cryostat is cooled by liquid helium to keep it at an operating temperature just above absolute zero. It will accelerate two counter-rotating beam of protons to an energy of 7 tera electron volts (TeV) and then bring them to collide head on. Several detectors are being built around the LHC to detect the various particles produced by the collision. A pilot run of the LHC is scheduled for summer 2007. (KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini)

**FILE**This March 22, 2007 file photo, shows the magnet core of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon Solenoid) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, which is scheduled to be switched on in November, in Geneva, Switzerland. Some 2,000 scientists from 155 institutes in 36 countries are working together to build the CMS particle detector. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini, file)

Spectators look at the ATLAS detector construction (a Toroidal LHC Apparatus) at the CERN (Centre Europeen de Recherche Nucleaire) near Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 31, 2007. The detector will be placed around the large hadron collider (LHC), CERN's highest energy particle accelerator. ATLAS is a general-purpose detector designed to measure the broadest possible range of particles and physical processes that could result from the collision of the proton beams within the LHC. A pilot run of the LHC is scheduled for summer 2007. (KEYSTONE/Martial Trezzini)

A European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientist controls a computer screen showing traces on Atlas experiment of the first protons injected in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during its switch on operation at the Cern's press center on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008 near Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists fired a first beam of protons around a 27-kilometer (17 mile) tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). They hope to recreate conditions just after the so-called Big Bang. The international group of scientists plan to smash particles together to create, on a small-scale, re-enactments of the Big Bang. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, Pool)

<b>Hadron Collider</b><br/> Ergonomists helped design a better working environment for control room staff charged with operating the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Experts from CCD Design and the Ergonomics Consultancy in London made visits to the centre, just outside of Geneva, to interview staff, look at working practices and plot just how the new centre would operate.

European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists control computer screens showing traces on Atlas experiment of the first protons injected in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during its switch on operation at the Cern's press center on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2008 near Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists fired a first beam of protons around a 27-kilometer (17mile) tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). They hope to recreate conditions just after the so-called Big Bang. The international group of scientists plan to smash particles together to create, on a small-scale, re-enactments of the Big Bang. (AP Photo/Fabrice Coffrini, Pool)

**ADVANCE FOR SUNDAY, JUNE 29--FILE** In this March 22, 2007 file photo, the magnet core of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet (CMS, Compact Muon Solenoid) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator, which is scheduled to switch on in November 2007, in Geneva, Switzerland. Some 2000 scientists from 155 institutes in 36 countries are working together to build the CMS particle detector. (AP Photo/Keystone, Martial Trezzini, file)

The Large Hadron Collider is all about understanding the forces of nature, and it’s on this understanding that our modern technological world rest. You can trace a direct line through the history of physics, from Newton’s gravity, Faraday and Maxwell’s electronmagnetism, Rutherford’s discovery of the atomic nucleus, Eddington’s understanding of the power source of the Sun, and on to the LHC.

Everything we take for granted today, from modern medical technology to mobile phones, is possible because we understand how the forces of nature work.

The LHC has been built because our understanding of these forces has shuddered to a halt. The problem lies in understanding the origin of mass in the Universe, which sounds esoteric, but without this understanding we cannot progress. Our current best theory, called the Standard Model of Particle Physics, includes a mechanism for generating the masses of all the particles in the Universe called the Higgs mechanism. This theory predicts the existence of a particle called the Higgs Boson. If the Higgs exists then the LHC will find it, opening a door to a new and deeper understanding of the forces of nature.

What’s happened in Geneva over the last few days has genuinely surprised me, and I suspect many of my colleagues. The LHC is an incredibly complicated machine, and it is very challenging to wake the machine up again after last years’ accident and begin to circulate particles around it, never mind to collide them. I heard an engineer last year say that circulating particles around the LHC was like threading a 27km piece of wet cotton through the eye of a needle with one hand behind your back.

Given that they only switched the machine back on last week, the results we have seen so far have been amazing. I really wouldn’t have expected progress like this until after Christmas - I worked at a particle accelerator in Hamburg in the 1990s and that machine took two or three years to really start behaving itself. So to get particles colliding after a couple of days is breath taking. For once it’s not hype.

Admittedly, we are right at the start of the journey. Energy levels in the collider at the moment are about 0.5 TeV – still a huge way off the machine’s maximum operating level of 7 TeV. CERN are now aiming for 1.2 TeV before Christmas, which will already make LHC the world’s most powerful collider overtaking the Tevatron at Fermilab near Chicago. It’s then a case of gradually increasing the energy to levels around 3.5 TeV, which is the probably the level we’d like for ground-breaking discoveries. I’d expect the machine to hit that sometime in the New Year.

As all this is happening, there will be lots of interesting data for the particle physicists and engineers, allowing them to calibrate their detectors and better understand this wonderful machine. In engineering terms, the LHC is as difficult as going to the moon. The technology is right on the edge, which is exactly where we need to be as a civilization. As just one example, the superconducting magnet technology being pioneered and understood in the LHC today is what you need to build nuclear fusion power stations, which may well be the key to solving our long-term energy crisis.

I would guess that it will be three years at least before the big headline discoveries, like Higgs Bosons or the nature of Dark Matter start emerging. This is the start of a long and exciting road that will last decades. But as JFK said when he launched America on a path to the Moon, we do these things “not because they are easy but because they are hard".

Brian Cox is professor of particle physics and Royal Society university research fellow at the University of Manchester

Source: Independent

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