CERN to start up super-accelerator on September 10European particle physics particle physics or high-energy physics Study of the fundamental subatomic particles, including both matter (and antimatter) and the carrier particles of the fundamental interactions as described by quantum field theory. laboratory CERN CERN or European Organization for Nuclear Research, nuclear and particle physics research center straddling the French-Swiss border W of Geneva, Switzerland. said Thursday it will start up its massive particle accelerator particle accelerator, apparatus used in nuclear physics to produce beams of energetic charged particles and to direct them against various targets. Such machines, popularly called atom smashers, are needed to observe objects as small as the atomic nucleus in studies on September 10 hoping that it could throw light on the origins of the universe. The so-called Large Hadron Collider This article or section contains information about an expected future scientific facility. It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change as the facility approaches completion. (LHC LHC Large Hadron Collider LHC Lahore High Court LHC Lonely Hearts Club LHC Lake Havasu City (Arizona, USA) LHC Log Homes Council LHC Left-Hand Circular LHC Les Horribles Cernettes (band) ) is the greatest experiment in the history of particle physics. Scientists are banking that it will confirm the existence of a sub-atomic component -- the Higgs Boson boson: see elementary particles; Bose-Einstein statistics. boson Subatomic particle with integral spin that is governed by Bose-Einstein statistics. , known as "the God Particle" -- that would fill in the last missing piece of the so-called Standard Model of particle physics. A gamble costing six billion Swiss francs (almost six billion dollars, 3.9 billion euros) that has harnessed the labours of more than 2,000 physicists from nearly three dozen countries, the LHC is the biggest, most powerful high-energy particle accelerator ever built. Beams of hydrogen protons will whizz around at near-light speed in opposite directions until, bent by powerful superconducting magnets, they will smash together in four bus-sized detector chambers, where they will be annihilated at temperatures hotter than the sun. "Starting up such a machine is not as simple as flipping a switch," the laboratory said in a statement. The commissioning starts with the cooling down Cooling down is the term used to describe an easy, full-body exercise that will allow the body to slowly transition from an exercise mode to a non-exercise mode. Depending on the intensity of the exercise, cooling down can involve a slow jog or walk, or with lower intensities, of each of the machine's eight sectors, then electrical testing of the 1,600 superconducting magnets, after which each sector's circuits, and then the sectors themselves, are powered together so the LHC can operate as a single machine. "We're finishing a marathon with a sprint," said LHC project leader Lyn Evans. "It's been a long haul, and we're all eager to get the LHC research programme underway." However, there are unlikely to be any immediate discoveries once the LHC is set in motion. "We will accumulate data for two years and it will take a lot of time to interpret," CERN's director general Robert Aymar said back in May. 
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