The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator which
will probe deeper into matter than ever before. Due to switch on in 2007, it
will ultimately collide beams of protons at an energy of 14 TeV . Beams of lead nuclei
will be also accelerated, smashing together with a collision energy of 1150 TeV.
A TeV is a
unit of energy used in particle physics. 1 TeV is about the energy of motion of a flying mosquito. What makes the LHC so extraordinary is that it squeezes energy into a space about a million million times smaller than a mosquito.
Housed 100-kilometers below the
earth, the LHC is currently being built by CERN.