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The CERN : The Construction Of Accelerators

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Underneath the ground below the border between France and Switzerland, physicists and engineers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, otherwise known as the CERN, are speculating the fundamental structure of the atom. The CERN’s main area of study is particle science; the branch of physics that studies the basic constituents of matter and radiation, and the interactions between them. Particle science is also referred to as “high energy physics” because many elemental particles do not occur under normal circumstances in nature, but can be created and identified during collisions of other particles, as is done in particle accelerators. The CERN is home to the largest and most complex particle accelerators and detectors. …show more content…

The magnets have to be kept at -271.30C and in order to do so, there is a distribution system of liquid helium that the accelerator is connected to in order to chill the magnets and other parts of the collider. With the help of the LHC, scientists emulate the conditions that existed within seconds after the Big Bang because of the collisions created by the beams at colossal speeds. The Big Bang occurred 13.7 billion years ago and is credited by some to have created the Universe with an explosion of energy and matter. Scientists believe that all of the particles that shape our Universe came into existence because of the Big Bang and defines what is now seen in the LHC. A common misconception is that the LHC could potentially create a new universe because some people refer to it as recreating the Big Bang, however this is misleading as the LHC is only reproducing the energies that existed shortly after the start of the Big Bang. Even though the LHC creates very high energies, these energy levels are limited to small volumes within the detectors. The detectors are programmed to follow and stop all particles because occupying all the energy from collisions is critical to identifying what particles have been produced. Because majority of the energy is absorbed by the detectors, very little energy is able to escape. The exposure from these energy levels is

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