What’s Happened Since CERN Fired Up the LHC Again?

The Large Hadron Collider was fired up for the third time, as scientists search for “new physics.”

Run by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. The purpose of the collider is to allow scientists to test theories and predictions of particle physics and find new physics.

Completed in 2008, the Large Hadron Collider has had two “operational runs,” from 2009 to 2013, and 2015 to 2018. Now this month, after a long hiatus to improve and upgrade data collection and detectors, the Large Hadron Collider is at it again.    

As the journal Nature reports, the first two operational runs tested and explored “known physics.”  The discovery of the Higgs Boson particle, or “god particle,” in 2012 was part of that work and reaffirmed current models of how the universe works. This time they are looking for new physics and unknowns such as dark matter.

So, how does it work? They accelerate particles to near the speed of light in a 17-mile underground circular tube, smash them together, and see the results. Now, with the new detectors, they should be able to comb through data with more accuracy.

As Dr. Sarah Demers, a physics professor at Yale University, who is working on the third run, told National Public Radio, “There has to be more out there because we can’t explain so many of the things that are around us.” 

“There’s something really big missing, and by really big, we’re talking about 96-percent-of-the-universe really big,” she said.

But some people are worried about what is going on at CERN. Social media has been exploding with theories, often with a version of the claim, “They are hiding this from you.”

One of the most popular theories is that CERN is using the Large Hadron Collider to open “portals” to another plane, a parallel universe, or some sort of stargate. Or CERN is trying to create black holes. This stems from CERN saying it might be possible to create tiny black holes but tried to clear that up with this statement: “The LHC will not generate black holes in the cosmological sense. However, some theories suggest that the formation of tiny, ‘quantum’ black holes may be possible. The observation of such an event would be thrilling in terms of our understanding of the Universe; and would be perfectly safe. 

CERN has also announced they’ve had a smooth start to their experiments so far. This third run is planned to last four years, with the fourth run scheduled to start in 2030.