. . . yes, scientists do have a sense of humor! It's just . . . different, that's all.
The LHC is the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Colliders aren't imaginatively named: they work by accelerating small particles to close to the speed of light and smashing them into targets. The energy and particles that come out of the collision are studied to try to figure out the basic building blocks of our universe. It's been compared to shooting a cannonball into a chickenhouse, and figuring out what a chicken looks like by analyzing the pieces that come out.
Plans for construction of a lab like this in the U.S., the SuperConducting SuperCollider, started in 1983. Unfortunately, funding for the project was cut in 1993 after almost 15 miles of tunnel had already been dug in the Texas plains south of Dallas. Likewise, recent funding cuts for Fermilab near Chicago resulted in a 10% layoff of that facility's researchers.
Net result? The Europeans will take the lead in high-energy physics research. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., we're just fighting to keep REAL science in our science classrooms.
posted by Cheryl Shepherd-Adams
