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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe started its operations last Wednesday. It has generated a lot of controversy due to its attempt to replicate conditions that were similar to those that happened shortly after the start of the universe in the Big Bang.
 
The LHC is a scientific complex near the French-Swiss border built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research or CERN near the Alps. It is a large circular tunnel 27 kilometers in circumference that is buried around 50 to 175 meters underground. The device will take protons and accelerate into collision at very high speeds.
 
Protons are constituent parts of an atom that has a positive charge and is several thousand times more massive than an electron. The energy produced by two of these beams would be equivalent to the head-on collision of two jeepneys moving at 0.0001 kilometers per hour but confined to a space that is a million billion times smaller. Protons are classified as hadrons in particle physics hence the name of the complex.
 
The first high energy collisions would happen in about a month. The data from the collision of these accelerated protons will provide information on the validity and limitations of the current theory in particle physics called the Standard Model. If proven right, the theory would explain why some particles have mass and other properties.
 
Critics of the project, and most of the brouhaha in the media, have questioned the safety of the planned experiments, saying that these might create a black hole that will bring on the end of the world. They have even questioned this in courts in Europe to stop the project. The scientific consensus, however, is that there are no basis for such concerns. There are even more energetic collisions that do happen due to incoming cosmic rays that have not produced the feared effect.
 
What then is the relevance of such a big project?
 
The pursuit of basic scientific research is a cornerstone of our conception and explanation of the things around us, without which we cannot have improved on the general human condition. It is surprising that the project pushed through given the difficulty that basic scientific research is having in getting sufficient funding in the current political climate in industrial countries.
 
The experiment would give confirmation (or not) of the theory of how things came about with the properties that they have. The Standard Model has been verified in almost all experimental tests of the three physical forces that govern our universe: electromagnetism (responsible for radio, light and electricity), the weak force (which is responsible for radioactivity) and the strong force (which holds together the nucleus of atoms). It has fallen short because it cannot explain gravity, the last fundamental force in nature and also the most familiar to most of us.
 
Aside from the new knowledge that we can glean from it-- new knowledge that we can use to improve our lot, the verification of theory through experimentation and practice is vital on how we learn new things and obtain correct ideas.
 
We view the objective external world through our senses and with tools that enhance these like microscopes, telescopes and now with tools like the LHC. We make sense of these information and organize it into knowledge that we use in our daily production activities. As such, knowledge of the world comes to us from three fronts. It comes from our seeking to perfect the production of our needs, in our relationships with each other and from scientific experimentation.
 
Often, theories can only be said to be correct after several repetitions of verification, from practice to knowledge and then back to practice. In the Standard Model, there are still things that are still not verified such as the Higgs particle. The LHC is a way to probe these or possibly point to new physics which would then provide a more refined understanding of the universe where we all come from.
 
Einstein pointed this out clearly when he said that our current scientific theories are our best description of objective reality. We should therefore try to refine these and test them to obtain the correct description of the world for the purpose of changing it for the better.
 
If only the same importance, as evidenced by the LHC's very high price tag, could also have been given by the funding governments to other problems such as diseases in the third world, climate change and poverty, then we would have a greater understanding on how to approach these problems and make science even more meaningful to all.