What is CERN ?

Straddling the French-Swiss border, the $9 billion CERN collider complex is buried at a depth of up to 575 feet (175 meters)

The tunnel complex runs along a 17-mile (27-kilometer) circuit.

Technicians are seen working in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, part of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), during a media visit to the Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the French village of Cessy, near Geneva in Switzerland Pierre Albouy Reuters

Scientists involved in the project say the laboratory was built underground because the Earth’s crust provides protection against radiation.

it was buried out of respect for the natural landscape, which sounds slightly ironic considering the massive damage the collider could possibly cause down the road.

A beam might rotate for up to 10 hours, travelling a distance of more than 10 billion kilometers, enough to make it to the far reaches of our Solar System and back again.

Tapping into ‘Dark Matter’
Astonishingly, astrophysical observations have demonstrated that all visible physical matter accounts for only four percent of the Universe. Now the race is on at CERN to find those elusive particles or phenomena responsible for dark matter (23 percent) and dark energy (73 percent)

The CERN collider is composed of some 9,600 super magnets – which are 100,000 times more powerful than the gravitational pull of Earth - that fire protons around a circular track at mindboggling speeds.

Travelling just below light-speed, a proton in the LHC will make 11,245 circuits every second.

A beam might rotate for up to 10 hours, travelling a distance of more than 10 billion kilometers, enough to make it to the far reaches of our Solar System and back again. Travelling just below light-speed, a proton in the LHC will make 11,245 circuits every second.

Essentially what the CERN experiment hopes to achieve is to separate – by way of the atom smasher - the invisible dark matter, which has been described as the very glue that holds together, from the visible.

No less amazing are the magnet’s coils, which are made up of 36 twisted 15mm strands, each strand comprised in turn of 6000-9000 single filaments, each filament possessing a diameter as small as 7 micrometers.

No less amazing are the magnet’s coils, which are made up of 36 twisted 15mm strands, each strand comprised in turn of 6000-9000 single filaments, each filament possessing a diameter as small as 7 micrometers.

There’s just one problem with this experiment: Nobody has any idea what the consequences will be if that goal is achieved. So once again, this ‘dark versus visible’ paradigm has generated a battle that transcends the scientific world, becoming a question involving philosophy and spirituality.

The 27km length of the LHC demands some 7,600 km (4,100 miles) of cable, which amounts to about 270,000 km (145,000 miles) of strand — more than enough to circle the Earth six times at the Equator.

The 27km length of the LHC demands some 7,600 km (4,100 miles) of cable, which amounts to about 270,000 km (145,000 miles) of strand — more than enough to circle the Earth six times at the Equator.

According to the CERN website, if the filaments were unraveled, they would “stretch to the Sun and back five times with enough left over for a few trips to the Moon.”

CERN logo
I will leave it up to the imagination of the reader to determine if the public relations team at CERN opened up the door to massive conjecture - not to mention a huge amount of 'conspiracy theory' - by opting for the particular logo design that they di

According to the CERN website, if the filaments were unraveled, they would “stretch to the Sun and back five times with enough left over for a few trips to the Moon.”

There may be another reason for the CERN super collider being buried hundreds of feet underground:

more than 100,000-times the temperature at the center of the Sun. This will be achieved, CERN says, by accelerating and colliding together two beams of heavy ions, an epic scientific event that will take place next month.

Deity of destruction as corporate mascot
Although most corporations shun any connection with religion and the spiritual world, CERN has chosen as its mascot a Hindu goddess. But not just any Hindu goddess.

The unbelievable hot temperatures it can reach. How hot you ask? Well, about as hot as conditions in the Universe after the Big Bang, or more than 100,000-times the temperature at the center of the Sun.

Although it may require some mental gymnastics to wrap one’s brain around exactly what the CERN scientists are attempting to achieve in their underground lab, the average layman may instinctively understand that such an experiment may be wrought with unforeseeable pitfalls. Stephen Hawking, the eminent physicist, seems to agree.

This will be achieved, CERN says, by accelerating and colliding together two beams of heavy ions, an epic scientific event that will take place next month.