One of the most significant scientific experiments in history begins today - and it may help unravel the mysteries of the universe.Beneath the rural tranquillity of the Geneva countryside, where ramshackle sheds dot the wide-open fields, scientists are getting ready for a trip into the unknown. Here, under 100 metres of rock and sandstone, lies the biggest, most complex machine humans have ever built, and today they will finally get to turn it on.
For CERN, the European nuclear research organisation, it will mark the end of a lengthy wait and the beginning of a new era of physics. Over the next 20 years or so, the $9.6 billion machine will direct its formidable power towards some of the most enduring mysteries of the universe.
The machine will search for extra dimensions, which could be curled up into microscopic loops. It might produce "dark matter", the unknown substance that stretches through space like an invisible skeleton. And it will almost certainly discover the elusive Higgs boson, which is better known by its wince-inducing moniker, the God particle.
The machine is called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and when working at full tilt it will drive two beams of particles in opposite directions around a 27 kilometre ring at 99.9999991% of the speed of light. Every second each of the beams will complete 11,245 laps of the machine.
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