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Buckle Up, Protons: You're Going For A Ride

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The Associated Press

Published: September 10, 2008

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

And although leading physicists such as Stephen Hawking say the atom-smashing experiment will be absolutely safe, some skeptics fear that 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, has attracted researchers of 80 nations.

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