What is the large hadron collider put into simple terms?

Question

What is the large hadron collider put into simple terms?

Answer 1

An atom smasher.

Answer 2

The LHC is underground near Geneva, Switzerland. It is a huge ring (27km circumference) which is surrounded by massive electro-magnets. It is used to accelarate tiny particles to insanely high speeds. Several particles are then basically just smashed into each other.

Because the particles are moving so fast (and therefore have so much energy) really interesting (to scientists) stuff happens.

Hope this helps,

Max

Answer 3

A mighty particle accelerator.

Answer 4

A demolition teem that's getting a little scary

Answer 5

This video on YouTube says it all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEoj...

(It's an honest-to-God rap video that really, really does explain the large hadron collider. Enjoy!)

Answer 6

A large circle tunnel where they get a atom moving at near the speed of light and hope that it will smash into another atom. This produces a brilliant flash of light which is analyzed.  

Answer 7

Hehe...

1 scientist says: Shall we look at miniscule bacteria to determine uses for microorganisms to help humans fight cance?

another scientist says: Could we research ways to nullify pollution by using chemical reactions to dissipate harmful chemicals?

the 3rd scientist says:  We could look into other sources of electricity to help lower our fossil fuel usage..

the 4th scientist says: Nah, lets just throw a couple of protons at eachother and see what happens.

Guess who they agreed with? ^.^

Answer 8

It's a machine that fires a particle at another particle at a very high speed causing them to smash.

Answer 9

(This wont be a very simple answer but i feel this question deserves something detailed to go with the much more simple ones)

Basically it's gonna use magnetic forces to accelerate subatomic particles called hadrons to a speed incredibly close to the speed of light.  Hadrons are just a group of subatomic particles that go into the makeup of things like protons, electrons, etc.  Then they'll cross some beams of the particles, and after a while their cameras and whatnot will be able to detect a collision.(they'll be happening all over the place in the collider, they just have to wait a bit to see one.)  One of the big hopes is that they will be able to create matter from the huge amount of energy involved in these collisions. (E=MC^2, energy=restmass times speed of light^2, basically a crapload of energy required to create matter).  It's actually a pretty cool idea, cuz since we've already turned matter into energy(for example, nuclear power), it would complete the circle to go the other way as well.  You may hear some people say that its dangerous because it may create a blackhole that will suck in the earth.  Actually, one of the objectives IS to create a blackhole, but its not gonna suck anything in because of how insanely small its mass will be.(a blackhole by definition is anything with a large enough gravitational acceleration to pull light into and not let it back out.  and that acceleration is a combination of the objects mass, and the distance from the object.  so, if it is an extremely tiny object, it requires almost no mass to hold in light that gets close enough to it.)

Again im sorry about not keeping it short and sweet, but i couldnt let myself not give justice to this question.