The six billion dollars experiment

details

Production
2007, United Kingdom
Original language
English
Running time
00:48:59
Genre
documentary
Topic
physics
Directed by
James Van der Pool
Written by
James Van der Pool
Produced by
BBC

November 26 2007 promises to be an important day in the history of science. In a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the France/Swiss border, the most complex scientific instrument ever built will be put to use in one of the most ambitious experiments ever undertaken. The instrument is the Large Hadron Colider; the experiment is nothing less than a rerun of the big-bang.

By revisiting the beginning of time, the five thousand or so scientists behind the project believe the chances hope to unravel some of the deepest secrets of our universe. Within these first few moments, the fundamental building blocks of the universe were created. The hope is that if we can grasp how these were formed, we can understand anything and everything around us. The search for these 'fundamental particles' has occupied scientists for decades but there remains one particle that has stubbornly refused to appear in any experiment. The Higgs-Boson is so crucial to our understanding of the universe that it has been dubbed the 'God particle'. The God particle explains how matter arises or as one scientist plainly states 'it is what makes stuff stuff,...what makes you and I solid'. But science on this scale doesn't come cheap. Over the 20 year lifespan of the experiment it is estimated that $6 billion will be lavished on the search for the God particle and other sub-atomic phenomena. If it is successful the LHC could open the door to a complete understanding of the world around us and even yield the ultimate goal of physics - a theory of everything.

Pariscience

Selected at Pariscience 2007
See the showing : Saturday 13th October 2007 from 13h00 to 14h30