Study the text about the Large Hadron Collider and do the exercises below.

Katarzyna Piotrowska The Large Hadron Collider

Science is an area which provides many opportunities for international co‑operation and scientists from different countries very often join their efforts to make new, groundbreaking discoveriesgroundbreaking discoveries [groundbreaking discovery]groundbreaking discoveries or work on important projects.

One such international undertaking is CERN – a research institutionresearch institutionresearch institution located near Geneva, Switzerland. CERN was founded in 1954 and today 22 nations are members of the organisation. It is the world's biggest laboratory for particle physicsparticle physicsparticle physics which deals with advanced and complex theories related to how our universe was created. One of the main facilities that CERN operates is The Large Hadron Collider.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world’s biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. The installation has the form of a giant circular tunnelgiant circular tunnelgiant circular tunnel built underground. The tunnel containing the accelerator tubes and other devices is 27 kilometres long, and between 50 and 175 metres below the ground. It lies beneath the border of Switzerland and France. Around 10,000 scientists and engineers from over 100 different countries worked together in the making of this project, and it cost $10 billion to build. It is now the largest and most complicated experimental research facilityexperimental research facilityexperimental research facility in the world.

As its name states, the research at the LHC involves the collision of hadronscollision of hadronscollision of hadrons. A hadron is a particle which consists of a number of smaller elements, such as the parts of an atomparts of an atom [part of an atom]parts of an atom: protonsprotons [proton]protons and neutronsneutrons [neutron]neutrons. The LHC accelerates these particlesaccelerates these particles [accelerate particles]accelerates these particles through the tunnel until they reach nearly the speed of lightspeed of lightspeed of light. Different particles are directedparticles are directed [particle is directed]particles are directed through the tunnel in opposite directions. When they collide, they create conditions similar to the early universeearly universeearly universe.

When the particles hit each other, their energy is converted intoconverted into [convert into]converted into many other particles, and sensitive detectorssensitive detectors [sensitive detector]sensitive detectors keep track of the pieces that are created. By looking carefully at the detector datadetector datadetector data, scientists can study what the particles are made of and how they interact. This is the only way to see some particles because very high energy is needed to create them and the LHC is one of the very few places that have enough energy to do this.

The LHC attempts to study elementary particlesstudy elementary particles [study elementary particle]study elementary particles have already taught us a lot about quantum physicsquantum physicsquantum physics. Researchers are hoping to learn a lot more about the structure of space and timestructure of space and timestructure of space and time by conducting more experiments at the facility. The observations researchers are able to make, can help us learn what the universe might have been like within milliseconds after the Big Bangmilliseconds after the Big Bang [millisecond]milliseconds after the Big Bang.

Because many people don’t understand how the LHC works, they think it could create a black holecreate a black holecreate a black hole, which would be very dangerous. There are two reasons not to be worried. The first is that the LHC won't do anything that the cosmic rays that hit the Earthcosmic rays that hit the Earth [cosmic ray that hits the Earth]cosmic rays that hit the Earth every day don't do, and these rays do not create black holes. The second reason is that even if the LHC did make black holes, they would be very tiny. The smaller a black hole is, the shorter its life. Very tiny black holes would die and turn into energyturn into energyturn into energy before they could hurt people. This is why the Large Hadron Collider is a very safe facility and has no negative impact on the surroundings.

1 Źródło: Katarzyna Piotrowska, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.