GENEVA - Scientists will launch an experiment in a tunnel deep beneath the French-Swiss border Wednesday, hoping to find evidence of extra dimensions, invisible "dark matter," and an elusive particle called the "Higgs boson."

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And although leading physicists such as Stephen Hawking say the atom-smashing experiment will be absolutely safe, some skeptics fear the proton collisions could unleash microscopic black holes that would eventually doom the Earth.

The most powerful atom-smasher ever built will produce collisions of protons traveling at nearly the speed of light in the circular tunnel, giving off showers of particles that will provide more clues as to how everything in the universe is made.

In the $10 billion project — the most extensive physics experiment in history — the Large Hadron Collider will come ever closer to re-enacting the "big bang," the theory that a colossal explosion created the cosmos.

The project, organized by the 20 member nations of the European Organization for Nuclear Research — known by its French initials CERN — has attracted researchers of 80 nationalities. Some 1,200 are from the United States, an observer country that contributed $531 million.

The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, moving around the 17-mile tunnel at 11,000 times a second at full power.

Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the atom. Scientists once thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom's nucleus, but experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons, and that there were other forces and particles.

The CERN experiments could reveal more about "dark matter," antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle — the Higgs boson — which is sometimes called the "God particle." It is believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.

The two beams of protons will travel in two tubes about the width of fire hoses, speeding through a vacuum that is colder and emptier than outer space. Their trajectory will be curved by supercooled magnets — to guide the beams. The paths of these beams will cross, and a few protons will collide. The two largest detectors — essentially huge digital cameras weighing thousands of tons — are capable of taking millions of snapshots a second.

Some skeptics have said the collisions could result in tiny black holes — subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.

"It's nonsense," said CERN chief spokesman James Gillies. Leading scientists like Hawking agree.

Gillies told The Associated Press that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the collider itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel. Full power is probably a year away.

"On Wednesday, we start small," Gillies said. "What we're putting in to start with is one single low intensity bunch at low energy and we thread that around. We get experience with low energy things and then we ramp up as we get to know the machine better."

Huge amounts of data will pour in — so big that the lab's computers can't sift through it all. So scientists, who will monitor the experiment at above-ground control centers, have devised a way to share the load among dozens of leading computing centers worldwide.

The result is the "LHC Grid," a network of 60,000 computers to analyze what happens when protons are hurled at each other. That computing power is needed if scientists are to find what they are looking for among the mountains of data.

"You can think of each experiment as a giant digital camera with around 150 million pixels taking snapshots 600 million times a second," said CERN's Ian Bird, who leads the grid project.

Sophisticated filters discard all but the most interesting data, still leaving some 15 petabytes to be analyzed. That's enough to fill 2 million DVDs.

The data will be sent to 11 top research institutions in Europe, North America and Asia, and from there to a wider network of 150 research facilities around the world for scrutiny by thousands of researchers.

Collaborating on such a large project has proved invaluable, said Ruth Pordes, executive director of the Open Science Grid at Fermilab in Chicago. The U.S.-government funded project is among the major contributors to the grid.

"We are doing things that are at the boundaries of science," Pordes said. "But the technologies, the methods and the results will be picked up by industry."

Scientists expect grid computing to become more widely used, for research ranging from new drugs to nuclear energy. Eventually, consumers will start seeing it in daily life to regulate traffic, predict the weather or help a flagging economy.

So even if the LHC experiment doesn't yield answers to the cosmic questions, historians may one day see it as a key step in developing networked computing.

It wouldn't be the first time that has happened at CERN. In 1990, a young British researcher there created a computer-based system for sharing information with colleagues around the world.

He called it the World Wide Web.

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I believe that science is about to make some truly siginficant discoveries over the next decade via the LHC.

Not only will it be due to the LHC experiements themselves, but as was pointed out in the article, it will also be due to the fact that so many scientists will be coming together to collaborate and share ideas.

I believe that over the next decade science will become such a focal point of humanity that religious ideologies will truly fall to the wayside.

Religious people will see this as being a bad thing, but from my point of view it will truly be a move from the dark ages.

We have already made the move from the dark ages technologically. Now we are preparing to make that move spiritually for the good of all humanity.

i cant wait?? hmm? well i can - don't have a choice to see what come of this, i know when i lived in st charles IL. i used to drive by the west and south end of fermalab everyday for about a year and that would always get me thinking on this kinda stuff, so i hope it turns out to be a quickly attained expieriment as to finding either the particle or at least new and exicitng info in this feild.

It will either confirm current scientific theories, thus giving scientists a huge boost of support. It would be like religions people having "proven" the existence of their God,...

Or they will find totally new and unexpected things, in which case they will be so engrossed in studying that the fact that their old theories didn't hold up will be totally insignificant to them.

In fact, many scientist are hoping that they don't find what the current theories predict, thus opening the door to new ideas and theories.

Either way, I think it will prove to be a quite exciting decade that we are about to embark upon.

beach bum on my other post gave me this james you may find this of interest also:


http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp

enjoy

According to the prophecy there will be one who will astral project into the higher density levels and construct a new holographic matrix reality from Higgs Bosun particles. Bringing about a new age of enlightenment for all life in the universe.

I just watched a special about this project on the History channel. It was very interesting. If they don't find the god particle they may discover other dimensions, or dark matter. I think it will be very interesting.

If they don't disrupt the entire space time continuum and life as we know it.

either way jb, it will be an exciting time.

It would be interesting if the biggest breakthrough from this came about in the year 2012.

I actually had the very same thought.

Im just hoping that it destroys the universe.

Then we can see if there is a god or not!

You then, are pure evil.

And ruin the playing field?!?!?!?!

You are not the first person to say that ... lmao

Look at it this way.

If all those who believe in a greater power are right then we will all go somewhere else (unless we are already there)

If all those who dont believe are right, then it wont make a blind bit of difference as we will all be space dust.

Either way, it will be a very good experiement.

Im backing Dr Hawking though

The Higgs boson particle is the key to the higher density levels. It is what the Draco seek. We must ensure that it does not come into their possesion or the existence of the entire holographic matrix reality will be placed in peril.

I just saw the latest graphic for Google. It's a particle accelerator! Makes one wonder if someone from Google's graphic department has been lurking in our forum?

I think wishing that the entire universe is destroyed just to satisfy your curiosity about God is a bit extreme. For an atheist, it is a death wish. I would think an atheist would want the opposite. Do you have a death wish?

JB

I think there is a lot more to this particle accelerator than they are telling us.

I haven't formulated my conspiracy theory yet.

Well, the LHC is supposed to start running this month. I don't know whether they actually started yet or not. They say it will take about a year for "shake down" anyway. So don't expect results anytime soon.

But that's probably why Google has the accelerator ring as an icon.

They're all out to get you Jeanniebean!

They spent 10 Billion dollars just to freak you out.