What Really Goes on at the Large Hadron Collider by Brian Cox

Monday, September 8, 2008

Although many people know that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is scheduled to turn on this Wednesday, 9/10, I'd venture to say most non-physicists don't really understand it.  I didn't really know anything about particle physics beyond my high school physics class and a physicist friend's valiant attempt to explain the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to me many moons ago.  So I decided, along with about 1.3 million others, to check out the very popular Large Hadron Rap on YouTube.  I think that rap makes more sense if you watch the entertaining talk below first.  I also think it's well worth your 17 minutes to understand that the world is probably on the cusp of gaining vital new knowledge about the nature of the universe.



The main theory is that this collider will produce the famed Higgs boson, confirming the proposed Standard Model of particle physics and the nature of everything. Or not. Anyway, this could eventually shed light on all kinds of cool things, including perhaps evidence of other dimensions and mini black holes.  Something good is bound to come out of this.  After all, a guy from CERN invented the World Web Web, and without that you'd all just be watching TV right now.