Why does humanity need the Large Hadron Collider? You can go even further and ask why microscopes and telescopes are needed at all, why science is needed? Man at all times strived for knowledge, this is what caused such progress. But the fact is that almost everything that can be observed directly has already been discovered and studied. Scientists today need more sophisticated tools that push the boundaries of knowledge. And, it should be noted, the collider does an excellent job with this!
What is the purpose of the LHC
Roughly speaking, we can say that the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is needed for almost the same thing as a microscope. The LHC is an apparatus for "looking" and studying particles, they are very small, but they have huge energies. Since the object is quite unusual, the tool for its research also does not belong to the usual arsenal of scientists.
The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is structured as follows. It contains a long tube, in which the particles are accelerated, and then fall into a ring-shaped tunnel, where the events planned by scientists (usually collisions) occur with them. Various instruments located inside the device record the changes occurring with the particles and provide the results of observations.
The LHC is located very deep underground (at a depth of no less than 100m), the entrance to the main part is in Switzerland, but underground communications have also "climbed" under the territory of France. Scientists and financiers from different countries of the world took part in its creation.
One of the main goals of the LHC was the search for the Higgs boson - a particle (perhaps more correctly, a mechanism) that allows the rest of the particles to have mass. The collider has already coped with this task. Also, with the help of the LHC, scientists intend to seriously study the quarks that make up hadrons (this is what influenced its name: the hadronic collider, not the hadronic collider, as Russians often incorrectly say).
The particles in the LHC are accelerated to high speeds and then collide. There is simply no other way to measure the characteristics of such small particles.
In addition to the LHC, there are several other particle accelerators in the world. Not to say that there are many, but exactly under a hundred. Even the LHC has another smaller accelerator. There are similar devices in Russia. The most outstanding feature of the LHC is its size: it is the largest particle accelerator in existence in the world, so it can be used to study hadrons with unusually high energies.
Why the media write so much about the collider
It's hard to believe, but the first publications about the danger of the LHC were written by the scientists themselves, who wanted the collider to be built as soon as possible. The project lacked funding, and the best way to raise funds these days is to create a sensation. After the media published information about the impending danger, the possible end of the world, as well as other, not very well-grounded, but loud statements, the project quickly raised the missing funds for the construction.
The probability of the formation of black holes or the appearance of antimatter as a result of the activity of the LHC exists, but it is so small that they do not speak seriously about it.
Many people do not understand at all why it was necessary to spend so much money on the creation of some incomprehensible whopper, from which there is no direct sense. However, this is a common occurrence in modern science. For example, in France, in the scientific center Cadarache, there is a thermonuclear reactor, the construction of which was much more expensive. By the way, it is financed by Russia, among others. And the LHC is certainly not the most dangerous science project. Suffice it to recall the experiments on testing weapons, which are regularly carried out by all countries.
