Ten years on from the God particle, we may have found a fifth force of nature
Beneath the Alps, there’s an elevator that leads deep underground. It used to be a joke that it led down to Hell. There is an inferno at the end, after all, but it’s a fireball on a different scale. Imagine the energy of a train at high speed squeezed through a beam narrower than a hair’s breadth. This is the Large Hadron Collider – the world’s biggest machine spanning a 27-kilometre racetrack.
Hopes are also high that the collider will finally help solve one of the biggest mysteries of all: dark matter. You can imagine it as a snowfield. Skiers might glide through the snow fairly easily, as lighter particles such as electrons will, meaning they have very little mass. But someone plodding home to their cabin in big boots will struggle along “like trying to move through treacle”, Patel says, just as heavier particles such as W bosons do.
The Americans almost found it first. But their plan to build an even bigger collider than the LHC under Texas was shelved in the early 90s after Congress cut off funding. Then-President George H.W Bush snr had reportedly been about
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Scientists may have found a fifth force of nature, 10 years after the God particleIt took four decades to find. Homer Simpson predicted it. And, depending on who you ask, it could one day destroy the universe. What’s the Higgs Boson? And what is left to discover?
Read more »
Ten of the week’s best opinion reads from the Financial ReviewWhy analysts are divided on whether the sell-off in global equity markets will intensify; the problems facing central bankers; and how AustralianSuper avoided the carnage found in equity and bond markets. Here’s 10 of the best opinion reads from this week.
Read more »
Scientists may have found a fifth force of nature, 10 years after the God particleIt took four decades to find. Homer Simpson predicted it. And, depending on who you ask, it could one day destroy the universe. What’s the Higgs Boson? And what is left to discover?
Read more »
Jawbone found in Spain could be oldest European human fossilPaleontologists believe fragment is 1.4m years old, predating previous find at same site by 200,000 years
Read more »
‘I just realised at that moment: I want to laugh through life with this person’It took 10 years and a tuk-tuk mishap for Ben Lee to realise he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Ione Skye
Read more »
Ukraine partly responsible for attack on nursing home, UN saysA new UN report finds Ukraine's armed forces hold a large share of the blame for an attack on a nursing home that left vulnerable residents trapped in the firing line.
Read more »