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SHOWCASE:
New Zealander Ernest Rutherford was the first to recognize
that from having atomic scale particles collide with each other,
and studying the results of the collisions came the unexpected conclusion
that almost all of the atom’s mass is concentrated in a region of
about 100,000 of the atom’s radius.
Continuing
his research the European Organization for Nuclear research (CERN)
has built the world’s largest Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This
is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, which lies
in a tunnel 27 kilometers in circumference and as much as 175
meters beneath the French/Swiss border. It has been funded by
and built in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and engineers
from over 100 countries. The total cost of the project is expected
to be between 3.2-6.4 billion euros.
The Large
Hadron Collider is scheduled to be operational again no sooner
than September 2009, after operations were halted due to a fault
detected on first running between 10th-19th September 2008.
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