• Question: How will the scientists at CERN with the large hadron colinder expand our understanding of the universe .

    Asked by huntsop to Jen, Jill, Mel, Phil, Stef on 6 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Jill Magee

      Jill Magee answered on 6 Mar 2013:

      CERN studies tiny particles which exist in our universe. So how can the Large Hadron Collider solve the mysteries of the universe?

      According to our knowledge of the universe, the matter (existing of particles) we can detect is actually only 4% of all matter that exists. So physicists have suggested the idea of dark matter. This dark matter, along with what we can already detect, would make up 25%. The remaining 75% is what we call dark energy. So, all the scientists at CERN hope that the large hadron collider will help in finding evidence of this dark matter.

      CERN might also help discover a special type of particle known as a Higgs boson particle. One of the big mysteries of the universe deals with mass. Why is there mass? What determines if a particle has mass? A theory called the Higgs mechanism says that there may be an undiscovered particle that could explain mass. Controlled collisions within the hadron collider could produce information about this.

      Now for something pretty cool – the more we understand about our universe, the more things we could invent…such as time travel! Some physicists think that the hadron collider can act as the world’s first time machine. However some scientists don’t quite believe this!

    • Photo: Phil Rice

      Phil Rice answered on 6 Mar 2013:

      That’s a tough question for a virologist. I am very interested in what CERN is finding but understanding is another thing altogether. I am an amateur and only know what I read from books by Richard Feynman, Neil de Grasse Tyson and Lawrence Krauss.
      With higher and higher energies we may be able to create another version of the Big Bang. This may give us an insight into how the Universe started. I suspect that the men and women at CERN were ever so slightly disappointed when they found the Higgs Boson – it would have been more exciting if it were not found or something else was found instead!!

    • Photo: Melissa Brereton

      Melissa Brereton answered on 10 Mar 2013:

      Tough question huntsop…. and something Brian Cox will certainly be better at answering than me!

      Scientists at CERN are interested in trying to find they Higgs Boson particle which is the missing link in the “standard model of particle physics” that describes all the matter in the universe. The Higgs boson particle is responsible for giving everything a mass and it was originally thought of in the 1960s and even to this day, it has never been proven. So I guess that if the scientists at CERN can eventually show this, then it will be pretty cool to finally understand what makes up the universe around us!

    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 13 Mar 2013:

      For a silly but quite in depth song about the LHC and CERN check out (maybe you won’t be able to go on youtube at school, worth checking out at home if you’re interested) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

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