Diving in the heart of the matter
On 23 July, we saw that the matter consists of atoms that are parts of a huge Meccano set that can be combined in various ways sometimes to make a house, sometimes a horse and sometimes ourselves. We have also seen that the atom has a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons around which electrons spin. Therefore, we wondered if we finally reached the ultimate reality of things, the smallest particle imaginable.
Well, no, protons and neutrons are themselves composed of quarks! Here, here we come in very, very small. Could not we stop there?
Physicists are people extremely curious and nosy, you know. Like all scientists from the rest. So they have "patented" a huge machine to scrape yet deeper into the heart of the matter. They installed their new toy in a tunnel 27 kilometers in circumference housed 100 m underground and straddling the border between France and Switzerland. It is a particle collider called the LHC (Large Hadron Collider).
They have undertaken this project in proton collider that will accelerate gradually to speeds close to that of light (remember that light travels at 300 000km per second). Their purpose is to collide those small particles to pop them and possibly do so still arise particle smaller and totally unknown.
They hope the same time clear up other mysteries, particularly recreate conditions similar to those prevailing at the Big Bang and uncover the nature of dark matter (which, with dark energy, accounts for 96% of of the universe which we are totally ignorant of nature). This would not be thin strokes of brilliance.
For images of this new toy, just go online and "peg" the word LHC.
The results we get from the LHC so extraordinary as they may be, they constitute the ultimate mysteries of our universe? Nothing is as unsafe because the scientists tell us that the more one digs into the heart of our universe, the more the mystery deepens. In
taste of our next dish, remember the words of astrophysicist John James who said that our universe is more like a great idea sometimes to a great machine.
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