CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has finally been powered on and is in progress as I type this of going through some kinks to get it working. It took a few tries for them to get the beam working as expected, but it currently is a “GO”! In fact the beam is now about halfway around the 28km circuit, and well… I honestly don’t know enough about what’s happening to fairly be able to explain it to others, but I must say I find the experiment exciting. Over the course of the next hour, CERN intends on getting the beam to work it’s way the rest of the way through the circuit. Their intent for the moment is to simply get the beam going, however they also state that if all is going well they will certainly attempt to collide particles later in the day.
In case you’re completely lost in what this is all about, the LHC is the world’s largest Particle Accelerator, and CERN intends on using it to send particles colliding with each other at just shy of the speed of light. This should send off a shower of particles that will effectively recreate conditions that would have existed moments after the Big Bang. Many people fear the miniature black holes that this will create, while scientists (who have far more knowledge on the subject than I) assure us that these black holes are like those that are formed in our atmosphere on a regular basis, and will evaporate in seconds. Of course, this means that people actually have a chance to study these black holes, as well as other effects from the experiment. The end result is that we may just be able to find out whether multiple dimensions do in fact exist.
This could end up with some of the greatest advancements in physics (and in other areas) for years to come.
* 5:41PM – UPDATE: This link is quite informative on the LHC