IMAGINE firing needles across the Atlantic and getting them to collide halfway. That was the technical challenge facing engineers at the Large Hadron Collider this week as they prepared to smash together proton beams at the highest-ever recorded energies.
“If successful, the Large Hadron Collider will have busted its own world record for collision energy”
The first attempt to achieve collisions at 7 teraelectronvolts – 3.5 TeV in each beam – was scheduled for 30 March. If successful, the machine will have busted its own world record for collision energy, which was set at 2.36 TeV last December.
Achieving collisions at 7…
