Experts around the world are eagerly awaiting the switch on of the world's biggest scientific experiment, and none more so than Professor Stephen Hawking.
The £5billion Large Hadron Collider aims to recreate the conditions moments after the Big Bang that created the universe.
It could offer Professor Hawking his best chance so far of winning a Nobel prize if it confirms his theory that black holes give off radiation.
The Large Hadron Collider could provide proof of Stephen Hawking's theory that black holes emit radiation
He told the BBC: 'If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don't think there's any doubt I would get a Nobel prize, if they showed the properties I predict.
'However, I think the probability that the LHC has enough energy to create black holes, is less than 1 per cent, so I'm not holding my breath.'
The British physicist put forward his idea in the 1970s but it proved controversial because many scientists believed nothing could escape the gravitational pull of a black hole.
Although Hawking's theory has become accepted by the profession is remains unproven. Nobel prizes in physics are awarded only when there is experimental evidence for a new phenomenon.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern may produce microscopic black holes that could evaporate in a flash of Hawking radiation.
To do this, a massive 27km tunnel has been constructed under countryside in France and Switzerland near Geneva, which will be used to smash protons together at 99.99 per cent of the speed of light.
Tomorrow morning, it will be switched on and the first attempt to send the particle beam around its entire 27km length will be made.
Experts say the LHC is probably the most complex and challenging scientific endeavour since the Apollo programme put astronauts on the moon.
One of the aims of the LHC is to hunt for the Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle".
The Higgs is said to be the so-far undetected key to mass. If scientists can prove its existence, it could pave the way for manipulating the gravity which exists in all mass - rather like Star Trek 'tractor' beams.
The core magnet of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment at CERN. There are six major experiments at the site.
However, Professor Hawking said even a failure to find the particle would be useful.
'I think it will be much more exciting if we don't find the Higgs, he said.
'That will show something is wrong, and we need to think again. I have a bet of $100 that we won't find the Higgs.
'Whatever the LHC finds, or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe.'
It is hoped the discoveries made by the LHC could also lead to practical applications.
Major spin-offs have already emerged from earlier particle accelerator experiments at CERN, the European nuclear research organisation based in Geneva where the LHC is housed.
It is credited with pioneering radiotherapy machines and even the world wide web.
The Large Hadron Collider is on the border of France and Switzerland
Professor Brian Cox, from the University of Manchester, is one of the LHC scientists and also played keyboard with pop band D:Ream.
He admitted to having received death threats from opponents of the LHC, who claim it could create black holes which could swallow the Earth. Scientists dismiss such fears as nonsense.
'If the collisions in the LHC produced a micro black hole, and this is unlikely, it would just evaporate away again, producing a characteristic pattern of particles,' Professor Hawking said.
'Collisions at these and greater energies occur millions of times a day in the Earth's atmosphere, and nothing terrible happens.'
0 comments:
Post a Comment