LHC: What is it? | What is its importance for Humanity?

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is a mega machine of 16.777 miles in circumference, with four colossal detective chambers, each one so big that you can put the Eiffel Tower inside it with plenty of space left. With a cost of $ 8,000 million dollars, it was built near the city of Geneva in Switzerland.

The goals the scientists had when making the LHC were ambitious, because they wanted a machine that could "observe" what happens at scales ten billion times smaller than one millionth of a meter, because with this type of information we would be able to understand what we call "matter", what it is composed of, and if it interacts with other much smaller dimensions which for now, cannot be detected by us (just as predicted by the Superstring theory, which goal is to unify the Theory of Relativity with Quantum Mechanics). The plan was to achieve this by colliding particles that will travel at almost the speed of light around the huge ring of the machine. In other words, the LHC was created to allow us to take a look inside the very soul of the universe.

Inside the accelerator, two high-energy particle beams travel at close to the speed of light before they are made to collide. The beams travel in opposite directions in separate beam pipes – two tubes kept at ultrahigh vacuum. They are guided around the accelerator ring by a strong magnetic field maintained by superconducting electromagnets. The electromagnets are built from coils of special electric cable that operates in a superconducting state, efficiently conducting electricity without resistance or loss of energy. This requires chilling the magnets to ‑271.3°C – a temperature colder than outer space. For this reason, much of the accelerator is connected to a distribution system of liquid helium, which cools the magnets, as well as to other supply services.

Thousands of magnets of different varieties and sizes are used to direct the beams around the accelerator. These include 1232 dipole magnets 15 metres in length which bend the beams, and 392 quadrupole magnets, each 5–7 metres long, which focus the beams. Just prior to collision, another type of magnet is used to "squeeze" the particles closer together to increase the chances of collisions. The particles are so tiny that the task of making them collide is akin to firing two needles 10 kilometres apart with such precision that they meet halfway. | Source

According to the scientists at the time, even if the results were different than expected, we would either way learn a lot about the universe, about what it is made of, and about the theories we have about this, because as an example they cited the fact that the Theory of Relativity arose just after the results of something that was believed to exist in the universe called "the Ether" were in the end negative. In other words, there was nothing to lose since the beginning.

This machine creates such a massive amount of information, that just about being able to store (in order for later on be able to study it) a very small part of the data that the LHC actually generates requires tremendous work, and even then, we talk about the equivalent of a dual layer blueray of 50 GigaBytes of data every 50 seconds aprox, information that must be stored somewhere for further analysis, and in order to handle it, a high speed network was created worldwide that connects the center of the LHC with hundreds of scientific, governmental and educational institutions from all over the world to store the necessary information that results from the experiments.

This image shows in a perfect way the complexity of such a challenge.

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On top of all this hardware, it was created another level of globally distributed software that allows a scientist sitting in a terminal anywhere in the world to study the data stored in all these institutions.

CERN itself explains it:

The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) – a distributed computing infrastructure arranged in tiers – gives a community of over 8000 physicists near real-time access to LHC data. The Grid builds on the technology of the World Wide Web. | Source.

In other words, this has been a monumental work of truly epic proportions.

Even some public LCH data has been used by scientists that don't work on the project to make discoveries.

Now, I would like to write a few words about the importance of this machine for everyone, which I hope some of you can appreciate.

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It is important that many are aware that creations like this should always be considered something to celebrate, because these achievements symbolically represents the apex of all the scientific achievements of humanity so far, it is with innovations and creations like this one that our race can move forward and accomplish things that might seem impossible in the first place. As I have told on several of my articles, I think our future can be truly spectacular, and we have everything we need to make it so.

I think that many people look for a sense of wonder and amazement in all kinds of superstitions, writings and beliefs without any proper proof, and say that such things, even without seeing them nor touching them, or even actually knowing if they are real or not, make them feel full of spiritual satisfaction or happiness.

The LHC provides data that help us understand what happened close after the Big Bang

But it should be accomplishments like the LHC the ones that fill everyone of us with total joy and a real sense of realization. Thousand of years of researches by people of all types and origins, who little by little have put their 2 cents to eventually accomplish something of this huge proportions, where it is finally possible to be able to take a great step in the understanding of our Universe, which I believe is our ultimate frontier, to be able to master space and our own reality.

From Aristotle and his researches in the natural sciences, to Galileo for creating one of the first modern telescopes , and Newton with his investigations into a whole range of subjects like mathematics, optics, physics, and astronomy, leaving the foundations for classical mechanics, explaining law of gravity and the laws of motion, Einstein and his revolutionary Theory of Relativity.

The LHC is the ultimate result of millions of hours discussing, millions of frustrations, ideas, theories and calculations, millions of errors and successes, of people made of flesh and blood like you and me, and whose intellect and perseverance has resulted in this monumental work of science and engineering.

This, in my opinion, is what a real miracle actually is: Something that seemed impossible, but thanks to humanity’s work, can now be seen, heard, touched, felt and admired by everyone of us, just as the @steemstem fellows did 2 days ago.

I remember some comments a few days or weeks ago saying that machines are things without feelings, but I assure you that behind this machine there are more feelings than all of those congregated in a stadium, praising and waiting for random things to happen, instead of rolling up their sleeves and start working in making something possible, tangible, and useful for themselves and for humanity.

There is a very touching answer (when analyzed in depth) Robert Wilson (the mind behind the idea of the LHC) gave to a Senator when asked about how could these researches help America’s security, the dialog went as follow:

Senator Pastore: Is there anything connected with the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country?
Robert Wilson: No sir, I don’t believe so.
Pastore: Nothing at all?
Wilson: Nothing at all.
Pastore: It has no value in that respect?
Wilson: It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture... It has to do with are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about... It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.
Source

Conclusion

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Our potential is limitless, and with enough time and dedication what today seems impossible, tomorrow can be a reality. Something as immense as the LHC would be unthinkable only 50 years ago (except for a handful of scientists probably), and by now this project already has almost 10 years working!

Technology and science goes hand in hand and they are both advancing at an exponential rate, who knows what new discoveries are waiting for us in the years to come, but what I am sure is that we still have a lot of excitement and amazement to feel in our lives, especially now more than ever.

Today, the LHC is probably the greatest machine created for science investigations, but tomorrow a better one will appear, even China announced last year their plans to become the leader of this sector, which means, the speed at which things advanced will accelerate even more, bringing us more knowledge to all, and ultimately, improving our lives.

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What is the most important thing the LHC has discovered? (short answer : the already famous Higgs Boson)

Is it worth it to invest such a huge amount of money into scientific researches? (short answer: Yes)

Both questions will be discussed in future posts, stay tuned.

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If you can't visit CERN's laboratories in person but still want to see them, you can do it digitally, because luckily they have been working along Google, it is available here.

I leave you with this video from 10 years ago (no HD) where some scientists explain the LHC while doing some fine rap.