Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Day 82: Accelerated


Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

There was concern that the new CERN Super Collider was going to create a black hole that would swallow the earth today. But when the machine hummed to life this morning protons traveled along the 17-mile-long track without unexpected incident.

It is a different and new kind of day on planet earth nonetheless.

"The collider is designed to accelerate protons to energies of 7 trillion electron volts and then smash them together, recreating conditions in the primordial fireball only a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang."
-from an article in the Times today

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