The world's largest scientific experiment is underway. Hundreds of feet below the peaceful countryside of Geneva, a gigantic particle accelerator is poised to recreate the Big Bang.
The so-called Large Hadron Collider is a tubular track constructed by the international organization CERN, about 17 miles long, with thousands of superconducting magnets each weighing about 27 tons. Inside the track, protons are accelerated and made to collide at almost exactly the speed of light.
The experiments at CERN could revolutionize science. They will give scientists a chance to understand the fundamental mysteries of the Universe, such as: where does the Universe come from? What is the origin of mass? Are there extra dimensions?
The experiments are also an example of dozens of nations working together, united in the quest for expanding human knowledge. An illustration is the cooperation between CERN and NASA in the AMS-02 project. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is currently on its way from Geneva to the Kennedy Space Center, from where it will be carried to the International Space Station.
The Embassy of Switzerland invites you to a discussion featuring experts from the European and American scientific community. The panel will explain why this is such a historic occasion, present the cooperation with NASA, and comment on whether the experiments could create a black hole.
During the discussion, there will be a video interview with Captain Mark E. Kelly, Commander of NASA's space shuttle mission with the AMS-02, and a live video link to CERN's LHC Command Center in Geneva, Switzerland.
Bio
William Brinkman
Dr. William F. Brinkman was confirmed by the Senate on June 19, 2009 and sworn in on June 30, 2009 as the Director of the Office of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the Federal Government’s largest single funder of materials and chemical sciences, and it supports unique and vital parts of U.S. research in climate change, geophysics, genomics, life sciences, and science education. Dr. Brinkman brings decades of experience in managing scientific research in government, academia, and the private sector to the post. He previously held prominent positions at Bell Laboratories and serves as a senior research physicist in the Department of Physics at Princeton University.
Felicitas Pauss
Prof. Dr. Felicitas Pauss is the Coordinator for External Relations at CERN, Geneva, and Professor for Experimental Particle Physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) in Switzerland. Her research activities concentrate on two main fields: Particle Physics at the High-Energy Frontier and Astroparticle Physics, addressing fundamental open questions about the structure of the Universe and the underlying mechanisms that govern its evolution. From 1997 till 2007 she was Director of the Institute for Particle Physics of ETH Zurich. Since January 2009, she is in charge of coordinating CERN’s external relations.
Ian Shipsey
Dr. Ian Shipsey is the Julian Schwinger Distinguished Professor of Physics at Purdue University. He received a B.Sc. from Queen Mary, London in 1982 and a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 1986. He was a post doctoral fellow and research professor at Syracuse University before joining Purdue in 1990. For most of his career, Professor Shipsey has studied the fundamental particles known as quarks. He is the co-coordinator of the LHC Physics Center at Fermi National Laboratory near Chicago. He is also one of the nearly 3,000 members of the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment (CMS) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mark Trodden
Dr. Mark Trodden is the Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics and Co-Director of the Center for Particle Cosmology at the University of Pennsylvania. He works at the interface of cosmology and particle physics theory in constructing and investigating models that may shed light on the fundamental physics origins of dark matter, dark energy, the early cosmos and other physics beyond the Standard Model.
Ambassador Urs Ziswiler
Ambassador Urs Ziswiler arrived in Washington, D.C. as Swiss Ambassador to the United States in May 2006. Prior to his current posting, he served as Head of the Political Directorate in Bern, the second highest ranking diplomat in the Swiss Foreign Service. His career led him from the World Bank to the International Committee of the Red Cross, EFTA, and to head the Political Division for Human Rights. Previous postings include the European Union, the Balkans, Argentina, Israel and Nigeria. Ambassador Ziswiler is fluent in German, English, French, Spanish and Italian and speaks basic Arabic.
Model of the origin of the universe, which holds that it emerged from a state of extremely high temperature and density in an explosive expansion 10 billion–15 billion years ago. Its two basic assumptions—that Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity correctly describes the gravitational interaction of all matter and that an observer's view of the universe does not depend on direction of observation or on location—make it possible to calculate physical conditions in the universe back to a very early time called the Planck time (after Max Planck). According to the model proposed by George Gamow in the 1940s, the universe expanded rapidly from a highly compressed early state, with a steady decrease in density and temperature. Within seconds, matter predominated over antimatter and certain nuclei formed. It took another million years before atoms could form and electromagnetic radiation could travel through space unimpeded. The abundances of hydrogen, helium, and lithium and the discovery of cosmic background radiation support the model, which also explains the redshifts of the light from distant galaxies as resulting from the expansion of space.
Science that deals with the structure of matter and the interactions between the fundamental constituents of the observable universe. Long called natural philosophy (from the Greek physikos), physics is concerned with all aspects of nature, covering the behaviour of objects under the action of given forces and the nature and origin of gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear force fields. The goal of physics is to formulate comprehensive principles that bring together and explain all discernible phenomena. See alsoaerodynamics; astrophysics; atomic physics; biophysics; mechanics; nuclear physics; particle physics; quantum mechanics; solid-state physics; statistical mechanics.
So the need to corral these superannuated schoolboys and force outside public review on them as they ratchet up the power of colliders to ever increasing levels remains, even if we get away with it this time. Tech Follow
Periergaia, there was/is indeed no special complaint from Gaia this year about CERN's LHC startup, and no evidence anybody has offered that anything untoward has happened so far in the wake of the LHC operation at higher energy levels. But, in some cases we wouldn't really have any data yet eg miniBlackHoles created and having dropped to the center of the Earth, now chewing away at our fundamentals from the inside out, we cant say for sure nothing radically threatening has happened. And given that the highest energy levels have not yet been reached, the potential for catastrophe this time around is still ahead of us. Yes, given the usual amount of human luck ie the same amount by which we survived Trinity everything will be fine, but we are plunging into the unknown and no one knows what the risk really is. All we know is that reputable physicists have written unrefuted theoretical models of dire dangers and CERN instead of responding to the need to review the situation and take all possible safety measures have used only propaganda and false refutations. So the need to corral these superannuated schoolboys and force outside public review on them as they ratchet up the power of colliders to ever increasing levels remains, even if we get away with it this time. Either that, or a theory which can predict the outcome of climbing each rung of the ladder, which has long been lacking. We are dropping the Earth into a black hole, metaphorically. Lets hope it doesn't turn out to be real. But that's all we have at the moment. No review and no safety measures of any kind.
AFL: When LHC is up and running, you will see that none of your fears were substantiated. I wonder if you will show up here and declare that you were wrong and then apologize? Probably not.
As for the volcanic activity and earthquakes... there is no measurable correlation. As you can see here
there was nothing special about earthquakes in 2009/2010. And the volcanic eruption in Iceland was only recognized by people because it disrupted their travel plans. When the same thing happens in Indonesia (and it does ever couple of years), nobody cares, not even when it's a major disaster for the locals.
Much more interesting would be a clip answering some of the critics who see that CERN's safety arguments for the LHC do not answer high level theoretical papers by respectable people such as Rainer Plaga, or even the young genius Luis Sancho, which show that CERN has no idea what will happen when the LHC revs up to maximum and unprecedented power, and there is a distinct possibility that total disaster may result from several different theoretical angles. Given that there is continual change in understanding of particle physics - which the LHC is designed to advance even further - it would be reassuring form CERN to answer critics instead of trying to evade them, which is really its current policy. With volcanic activity and earthquakes multiplying since the April 1 startup, precisely what the critics named as possibilities harboring worse possibilities to follow, it is time for CERN to undergo outside review until it answers some of the concerns. See scienceguardian.com for some coverage of this beyond the passive media acceptance of anything that CERN claims.
member. 
