i see the 17 mile super atom smasher smashed today...

what does it mean and what did they learn?

This was the email I sent to my son Chris this morning. His response was quite interesting.

Dad,

The recent operation of the 10 billion dollar Large Hadron Collider was just a test. No experiments were done. There will be no experiments done until later this year, but everyone is excited (including me) to have it up and running.

The last time they tried to 'fire it up' there was an explosion. The collider uses powerful electro-magnets to accelerate various atomic particles around it's 17-mile track. To get the magnetic field powerful enough, a tremendous amount of electricity must flow through the magnets. In order to handle this amount of electrical current the magnets are cooled using liquid helium. The recent explosion was caused by a poor connection between two of the magnets, which was essentially vaporized by the high current. It cost $400 million to fix.

One of the particles scientists are looking for is called the Higgs Boson. This is a theoretical particle thought to mediate the gravitational force. If it's existence were confirmed, it would add strength to a number of physical theories, some of them falling under the umbrella of 'string theory'. If the particle doesn't exist that would be exciting too, because it would force scientists back to the drawing board so to speak.

It's interesting stuff.

Chris