LHC

It is a 27 km particle accelerator (if any of you have watched the series The Flash you may know about the particle accelerator) for the benefit of others, the particle accelerator is basically a machine(with the help of electromagnetic fields) propels charged particles to high speeds almost at the speed of light. The use of electromagnetic fields is also to contain them in small beams for the collisions to be successful. It is a circular 300 meter long tunnel on the border of France and Switzerland. Thousands of engineers, scientists and mathematicians from across the world designed and built this to help other scientists understand the collision between small particles like the protons. The main aim of the LHC is collisions between small subatomic particles almost at the speed of light.

The particle accelerator in the series Flash

In a beam, there are about 100 billion protons each of which are 30 cm long and the diameter of 1 mm just like spaghetti. The beam of protons collide exactly at one particular place with each other, not all the protons collide in the first collision because the atoms is mostly made up of empty space and it is very difficult to make it collide. When the protons don’t collide they go all the way around the tube and again come back to the same place. For better understanding let’s say there are 2 people standing 10 km away and trying to shoot an arrow so the arrows collide, they won’t be able get it in the first try right? Trying continuously improves the chances of getting the collision.

The LHC uses two types of magnets dipole magnets and quadruple magnets. The dipole magnets are used to keep the beams on the right track for faster of collisions, right before the beams enter the place where they collide, the quadruple magnets come into action and steer the protons. They apply three to four hundred metric tons of force per meter; this reduces the diameter of the beam to the diameter for our hair.

The most known two general purpose detectors “ATLAS” and “CMS” due to the claim that Higgs-Boson was detected in 2013. When two protons collide the result may look like a mess for many but for the scientists the mess is where they can discover what the atom constitutes. According to the direction and the curvature of the particles emitted due to the collision, the physicists can understand and come to a conclusion about the particles and its properties.

The physicists find neutrons, kaons, pions, muons and neutrinos from these collisions which all come under the hadrons hence the name Large Hadron Collider.