by William S
The European Center for Nuclear Research, located outside Geneva, has built a machine they call the Large Hadron Collider. This machine was built to speed protons to the speed of light and smash them together in order to find “new forms of matter and energy that cannot be produced in smaller machines.” The machine has a 17 mile long under-ground racetrack for the protons to be tested on. The machine had technical difficulties and will be shut down until next April. The problem occurred when the machine was heated up and leaked helium into the tunnel. The article says that if these problems are not taken care of there could be “potentially disastrous consequences. The problem will take two months to fix and since they have to shut down the machine during the winter months to save money on electricity they will continue in April.
I think that it is interesting that we are trying things like this. I’ve been told for the last 8 years of my life that subatomic particles are the smallest form of matter. I can’t think of anything being smaller than subatomic particles. I thought it was good that they shut down for the machine for the winter because it must cost a lot of money to run and it saves a lot of energy. The article was interesting even though the subject matter is not appealing to me.
Source: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 New York Times
