What is a large hadron collider?

Question

They're counting down until it's being activated; www.lhcountdown.com

Answer 1

It's a particle accellerator.  A hadron is a nuclear particle like a proton or neutron.  The collider gets up a beam of high energy (VERY high energy) protons, then gets up a second beam just like it.  Then it runs the two into each other head-on and speeds getting near the speed of light.  The idea is to get matter at an energy that rivals the early moments of the big bang, trying to find out what it's all made of.  

Answer 2

It's a device designed to end the world by creating black holes and strangelets.