A Trip Inside The "Big Bang Machine"

60 Minutes Visits One Of The Biggest Science Experiments Ever, The Large Hadron Collider

(CBS)  As a rule, physics rarely makes news, but it did this past week after equipment malfunctions delayed for several months the start up of one of the biggest science experiments in history. We are talking about the Large Hadron Collider, a massive, multibillion dollar project designed to unlock the secrets of the universe.

For several years now, thousands of the world's most accomplished scientists have been gathering in Europe, not to explore the heavens but the frontiers of inner space. They are hoping to discover subatomic particles so tiny that they have never been detected. They think these particles will help explain why the universe has organized itself into so many different things - planets and stars, tables and chairs, flesh and blood.

To do it, they have constructed one of largest, most sophisticated machines ever built to replicate what the universe was like a few nanoseconds after it was created. And as Steve Kroft reports, it is all going to happen 300 feet underground on the border between Switzerland and France.

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Under the meadows and mountains outside Geneva, Switzerland, 9,000 physicists from all over the world have been taking part in one of the biggest, most ambitious scientific collaborations in history. It's being conducted in a vast subterranean laboratory carved out of earth and bedrock under two different countries. And it has pushed the limits of technology beyond state of the art, towards the boundaries of science fiction.


It's called the "Large Hadron Collider," a massive scientific instrument that took 20 years to create and cost $8 billion.

Scientist Austin Ball, who helped build it, gave 60 Minutes a tour of the experiment before they sealed it up and began a series of run-throughs. It was during one of those tests that some equipment malfunctioned, setting back the project several months. When it resumes, they hope to begin cracking open the tiniest bits of the atom, by racing them through a 17-mile tunnel and crashing them into each other at nearly the speed of light.

"Forty million times a second, bunches of protons collide in the center of this barrel section," Ball explains, standing in front of a pipe that the particles will come through. "And they reproduce conditions that hadn't existed since a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang."

By traveling back in time and recreating the earliest seconds of the cosmos, scientists are hoping to discover the smallest building blocks of nature, and the forces that brought them together to form so many different things. And they're planning to do it with a machine that's simply expanding on one of man's very first ideas.

"I have to say, it is pretty stupid to take two things and throw them at each other as fast as you can and see what comes out," says scientist Bob Stanek, who has been working on the collider for 14 years.

He agrees it's a primitive concept. "But we're humans, and that's all we know."

[jimmy2841]

Well, I see that the US has blew it again... I was just watching the story about the Big Bang Machine... It is nothing new... A few years ago, the US was oin to build the same machine in Ellis, County, Texas... They in fact, had it started and the Congress of the US took the money away from it...
Just how stupid do they think we really are? I do not like the idea of us spending money and then giving it away, so that we cannot get anything from it... I call that waste... I really would like a response to my comment...

Jim

[docmonk7]

This story really was fascinating. It is as if I have a chance to witness some great scientific discovery in the making, and Steve Croft gave me the opportunity to participate, albeit on a very limited and distant level. I found the story a source of intrigue and hope, and somehow comforting in the midst of the turbulent economy challenges. Go figure! It is so thrilling to see and hear brilliant Americans and international scientists working together on such a phenomenal project.

[hhpaulson]

Yes, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) in Waxahachie, Texas. It was supposed to be BIGGER and MORE POWERFUL than the CERN machine. The U.S. House of Representatives decided in 1993 to halt the SSC project after
14 miles of tunneling were completed and two billion dollars spent.

We wasted 2 BILLION dollars. So stupid.

[gary4books]

Just explain why we are not doing this in Texas and why members of Congress wanted to flood the facility under construction so it could never be used. With people like that, we will never need enemies.

[akaartymiss]

A bit of perspective to add...earlier in the program Leslie Stahl, while in Iraq, brought up the fact that we are spending 10 BILLION dollars a MONTH...in Iraq.

Steve Croft, in his piece about the super collider, questioned the spending of 8 billion dollars...we literally throw more money down the drain each month than the scientists spent on this machine that could very well change the world in one form or another.

That being said I am very appreciative of Steve Croft''s piece on this collider. I am NOT appreciative of the money we are throwing down the bottomless pit of Iraq, who, by the way, have billions of their own money to spend.

Just sayin...

[beartalker]

Interesting that 60 Minutes broadcast the three stories it did this evening, each of which mentioned how much money the US was spending... So let me see if I can get this right: $700 billion to bail out greedy, power-hungry financial institutions on Wall Street; $120 billion a year in Iraq, a war started by greedy, power-hungry politicians under the guise of fighting terrorism when everyone knows a) that the terrorists were in Afganistan, and b) that it was really all about oil; or $8 billion on a super-collider purely to advance human knowledge. If knowledge truly is power, then I''d say the $8 billion is a really good deal!

[seahagen]

Isn''t this most intersting. Dr. Carl Richard Hagen, University of Rochester, and his colleague Dr. Gerald Guralnik, Brown University, were two of the theoretical physicists who discovered this theory, who made this all possible, from the USA were not even mentioned in this story. You all should do your research and recognize our own.

[ch5d]

This discovery is not just credited to Peter Higgs. In addition to Higgs, five others are credited with this discovery (Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble, Brout, and Englert). In their 50th anniversary celebration, Physical Review Letters, where the original papers were published, just credited and recognized all these papers for this milestone discovery.

http://prl.aps.org/50years/milestones

It is unfortunate that 60 Minutes did not recognize all these theorists %u2013 especially as you were noting the American contributions.

[ch5d]

This discovery is not just credited to Peter Higgs. In addition to Higgs, five others are credited with this discovery (Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble, Brout, and Englert). In their 50th anniversary celebration, Physical Review Letters, where the original papers were published, just credited and recognized all these papers for this milestone discovery.

http://prl.aps.org/50years/milestones

It is unfortunate that 60 Minutes did not recognize all these theorists %u2013 especially as you were noting the American contributions.

[matter77]

You''re ALL wrong. Go back and read everything from several years ago about the Supercollider and read the statements from members of Congress and scientists, too! Opposition was strong from all directions. This was not a case of the gov''t wasting money on other imperialistic ventures instead, with no money left over for Science. Quit spewing that lie. The American Science community is in shambles, and that is as big a problem as the money. Do you think the public supported the Supercollider? Not even alternatives. They don''t understand it and they don''t care about it. Now they read about CERN and say, "gosh, why didn''t we buy one of those?".

Quit spewing this lie about not building the Supercollider because of the Iraq War or the Bailout and everything else. You don''t have any idea what you are talking about.

This reminds me of man going to the moon. Nobody cared about going to the moon just the money that got pass around while they were doing it is all that mattered.

[displeased]

Only liberal "scientists" would waste this much money, time, and effort trying to devise their own version of their secularized version of history.
Posted by StopSocialis

Scientist''s version of history is based on actual observations. Not myths and and supernatural fairy tales that your god is created from.

[displeased]

Can you imagine the trillions of dollars we could save in this country is everyone simply trusted in God, our Creator, and stopped wasting money on programs like this trying to figure out where life came from and how it all began?
Posted by StopSocialis

Could you imagine the trillions of dollars this country would save if we stopped supporting wars based on your mythical creator?

[G H M]

StopSocialis, Displeased, troutfisher4 what??
I think your the same person.

[G H M]

This is a european endeavo dummy, the us had no part in it..

[displeased]

This is a european endeavo dummy, the us had no part in it..
Posted by ghm1

Although this is housed in Europe, 2000 scientists from all over the world have contributed to this project.

[displeased]

1200 of the scientists were from the US.

[pica_pole]

What the heck are they trying to say:

"...Bob Stanek believes the collider will go down in history, and not for swallowing the earth."

If Earth is swallowed, the collider won''t be going down in history because all of the historians will be swallowed, too. Unless there are historians elsewhere in the universe...

[u2bgone]

A very scary assessment of the "intellectual" community who are on the precipice of possibly causing catastrophic consequences which could destroy the world as we know it. The portrayal of this experiment to be one where a small controlled number of protons are managed along miles of this cylindrical tube and crashed into the other to produce a re-creation of what they "assume" will provide them with scientific data is absurd. There is no way they can determine the number of protons which could possibly detonate into one another at the time of impact event. The resulting collisions of these protons could at a minimum cause considerable seismic activity resulting in anything from earthquake activity around the world to the unexpected consequence of an explosion, one of which this world has yet to experience, and capable of an impact so enormous, it could replicate the direct hit of a meteor large enough to dislodge the planet from its axis. I''m not against scientific experimentation for the advancement of mankind, but something built on this large a scale for a "first" of its kind experiment with admittedly unknown results/consequences, should and could be conducted in a much smaller and protected prototype. After all, we are only talking about smashing a couple of protons into one another...aren''t we?

[lochlan-2009]

First of all, the Big Bang is a joke. Hubble seeing the dopler effect on galaxies that are further away having red shift is due to the energy of these waves being spread out over a larger and larger area. It''s a lot like a rock being dropped in a pond. The waves close to the center are tight (wavelength blue), as you get further from the center the wave energy spreads out and the wavelength lengthens (wavelength red). There is NO beginning, and there is NO end. There was NO Big Bang. It amazes me how many people get on the science channel, being considered an authority on things like relativity, and don''t even understand the concept, describing it completly wrong.
I sure hope they are correct and there is not enough matter grabbed as it speeds through Earth, for these possible (but unlikely) created black holes to get stuck (this is like shooting a stellar blackhole through a galaxy and hoping it doesn''t get caught). The blackhole only needs the same amount of mass to go into orbit and get caught like a cancer in the planet, even if it is moving at the speed of light.

Determinism is the true science, and religion.

The other thing that pisses me off about the media was all the "we''re still here" comments we heard when they sent the particles around the loop in one direction, with no smashing. Of course we are, they didn''t smash anything.

[displeased]

Dude that scientist must be really, really old. What''''s his name again?
He sure has observed MILLIONS of years of science, hasn''''t he?
Posted by StopSocialis

Rick, scientists understanding of the universe is constantly growing and the information that is discovered builds from previous ideas that go back to the Greeks. The reason modern science traces its roots to the Greeks is because the Greeks were the first to develop models of nature based on REAL observations. If their models didn''t pass tests, they were abandoned or revised. Same basis with modern day science.

Please educate yourself by picking up a book other than the bible...

[stuarthud77]

"Can you imagine the trillions of dollars we could save in this country is everyone simply trusted in God, our Creator, and stopped wasting money on programs like this trying to figure out where life came from and how it all began?

Posted by StopSocialis"

I bet if born 500 years ago you would have been amongst the mobs demanding scientists like Copernicus and explorers like Columbus be burnt at the stake for suggesting the earth isn''t flat and the center of the universe like it states in the bible.

If Spain hadn''t "wasted" money on an expedition which the Bible states should have seen Columbus fall off the edge of the earth then America would never even have been discovered!

Thankfully some people are intuitive enough to think for themselves and try to uncover facts rather then blindly accepting what they are told without question (as religion demands).

[displeased]

You atheists will actually believe in something called "The Big Bang" (sounds like something a kindergartner could come up with), yet you call Christians stupid and mythological.
Now that''''s classic.
You believe everything came from, that''''s right...NOTHING....and yet you have the gall to call others delusional.
Posted by StopSocialis

Rick, the big bang is a theory, based on observations so far from our limited technology and knowledge. I think the big bang theory will be revised or abandoned as new evidence surfaces. The difference between scientists and fundamentally religious folks like you is, when scientists don''t know the answer to something, they keep looking. You religious folks claim God snapped his fingers and it was done, and that must be the answer...no questions asked. I find that behavior delusional and immature. However, that''s only my humble opinion...

[troglobyte]

Let those among us who wish to learn the nature of God and the Universe, leave the others who live in the dark ages behind to burn each other at the stake.

[tipsyinct]

You atheists will actually believe in something called "The Big Bang" (sounds like something a kindergartner could come up with), yet you call Christians stupid and mythological.

Now that''''s classic.

You believe everything came from, that''''s right...NOTHING....and yet you have the gall to call others delusional.

You don''''t even realize how insane you sound and how much of a minority you really are.
Posted by StopSocialis at 11:51 PM : Sep 29, 2008

Science and God are not mutually exclusive. It IS possible to belive in god and still be curious about the universe he created. Why can''t you believe in the big bang and also believe that this was god''s way of creating the universe? Why must people blindly follow a god who works behind the scenes? I say the purpose behind our very existence is to gain knowledge of god''s creation(which was not just us), to celebrate it by knowing as much as we can about it.