On Sep 10th 2008 Jura mountains in the France-Swiss border witnessed the worlds largest experiment in physics ever conducted in the history of mankind! A particle accelerator supposed to be largest in the world called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was put to action which eventually is supposed to unravel the greatest mysteries of universe like the 'Big Bang theory', Dark matter (which leads to formation of black holes) etc...This very thought attracted doomsayers into this as they beleive any such enthralling experiments by man to test the powers of the creator would turn catastrophic.Though the experiment is conducted on a small scale basis, such is its powers that it could produce temperatures 1000 times more than the temperatures inside Sun and could give birth to dangerous post-experimental matter and effects which could harm the earth and the living beings in it.No wonder this exeperiment is drawing a cloud of controversies towards it but when you look beneath it what you see is a pure scientific marvel.It required years of dedication by hundreds of physicists and a few billion dollars to produce a machine which everyone believe would take us to the next dimension in science and technology. A dimension who knows could lead us to new information on outer space or within the Earth, betterment of human lives, cure for many cronic diseases etc......but treading these unknown land have their own risks as our doomsayers predict.A failure or mishap with an experiment of such nature and proportion could mean profound influence on the environment not mentioning the damages caused on those expensive machines and years of hard work.I remember seeing those pictures and videos in the paper where gory protests where held outside CERN (European organization for nuclear research) which is responsible for conducting the experiment.People believed that this could trigger minor Earth quakes,volcanoes and even a meteor strike...... I also remember news agencies reporting an Earth quake somewhere in middle east immediately after the experiment was conducted (sounds utterly dumb as on the first day experiments where conducted only to pass particle beams through the tunnel whereas actual collision was scheduled for a later stage.) Many great personalities including our very own missile man and former president of India Dr.A.P.J Abdul Kalam came forward to assure the people of India and the rest of the world that this its completely safe and all the measures have been taken for a smooth sailing.Hey did I mention that we Indians also have another thing to be proud of ? I am talking about the superconducting magnets used in LHC to accelerate the particle beams.India has highly contributed for its research and development upto specifically manufacturing them for the LHC experiments.Also many Indian scientists are part of conducting these experiments..Kudos to INDIA as this is another feather on our hats! for a great contribution on a world stage like this.There are lots to blog on a topic like this which could churn out a scientific revolution in itself and we can discuss this for ages right from the technical details which is a big story in itself (you know the tunnel which seats the LHC is 27 miles long and its 170 metres beneath the Earth) upto the experimental data collected which requires a collective contribution of many data centres in the world to store the information retrieved from those experiments conducted(I hope you know how humungous one data center would be)....there may be few misconceptions about this experiment among few of us but what if it could bring about wonders in this world by opening new ideas and unlock the mysteries of this universe which lay hidden right amongst us. People say Risks are shadows of success which lurks behind it but I say if we get to know them better they are just harmless companions which actually shows us the size of our success and the heights we have reached.Few geniuses had discovered this little truth a long way back and thus came their wonderful inventions and discoveries else we would still be rotting in a stone age.So on a concluding note all I'd like to say is that as superior beings of this planet we have the right to know the truth,our origins,the place we live in and perhaps this could be another 'evolution' in calling........as exciting as it sounds, as mysterious as it feels.
For technical details on LHC:
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