The Large Hadron Collider prepares for take-off
At about 9.30 am local time, scientists will introduce a beam of protons into the 18-mile-long circular particle accelerator, buried some 300 feet in the earth and straddling the Franco-Swiss border just outside Geneva, beginning what should be a remarkable career. Some 300 journalists from around the world will be on hand to watch the switch being thrown, accompanied by the thousands of scientists who will make the LHC a good part of their life's work. Last night, some 50 scientists were working late to iron out glitches and prevent an embarrassing failure in front of the world's media.
Meanwhile, the End is Nigh fraternity awaited their doom, believing the LHC could eventually produce a mini black hole that will sink to the centre of the Earth and devour it from inside. Cern, the European nuclear research organization, which runs the LHC, dismisses this as codswallop.
Over the next 15 years, the atom smasher, conceived three decades ago and costing in the region of £5 billion, is expected to unmask the secrets of the sub-atomic universe, recreating the conditions existing in the instant following the Big Bang. But to do so, it has to work – and it wasn't doing that on Monday night.
"We have had some last-minute problems," said Dr Bailey, who has spent 30 years at Cern.
The LHC is a giant racetrack around which two streams of protons will run in opposite directions before smashing into each other. The debris is the important stuff, hopefully providing insights into the nature of mass, alternative dimensions and the dark matter and energy that is thought to make up most of the universe.
But to achieve the collisions you need lots of electromagnets to hem the protons in and keep them on target. And to get really powerful electromagnets you need to keep them cold – very, very cold. To within a few degrees of absolute zero, in fact.
This was the problem on Monday. The LHC's enormous cooling system failed partially, raising the temperature to the intolerably high temperature of minus 269 degrees C or so.
"A multitude of things can go wrong with a machine as vast and complex as this," said Dr Bailey, who will help "drive" the proton streams around the LHC. "It will require regular maintenance and will be closed down for a number of months a year. We'll do that in the winter when the energy bills are at their highest."
Even the Large Hadron Collider has to pay its bills, and it consumes as much power as Geneva. Who would want a red letter for that kind of money dropping through the door?
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