Today, the world almost ended.

Well... that was the worst possible scenario that scientists were projecting this morning when they turned on the LHC, the worlds largest particle collider!!!!

Basically, atoms are made up of protons (+), neutrons (neutral) and electrons (-).  Once thought to be the smallest particles of matter, for years scientists have theorized that these sub-atomic particles were made up of even smaller sub-atomic particles, generally named 'quarks.'  They began naming these particles when they were able to first witness the collision of atoms and noticed that the energy of each particle before the collision did not match the energy that resulted after the collision (primarily heat energy).  This led them to believe that there were even smaller particles, the quarks, that were being shot out and undetectable with current scientific tools.  The particles are so small and so fast, in theory, that once the collision occurs, these particles are 'lost' forever.

Hopefully, with the 'completion' of this machine (which shoots the two proton beams at nearly the speed of light through 17 miles of underground pipes and directed by mirrors and magnets) scientists will be able to harness and view the collisions with more accuracy than ever before and come to some conclusions about these quarks.

This machine will hopefully be able to give scientists an idea of what the earth was like a split second after the 'big bang' that began life on earth.

It's stuff like this that boggles my mind about this technology:

     "... if everything goes right, each pulse of protons will whip around the ring 11,000 times a second, traveling the equivalent of a trip to Neptune and back before they slam into the protons going the other way at four points around the ring"

Even a non-scientist should be able to appreciate the power and potential of a machine like that!!!

I LOVE SCIENCE!!!