It may at first seem that the world of subatomic physics is far removed
from our every day lives. Isn't it all just a waste of time and
taxpayers' money? Hopefully, all who read this book will come to a
different conclusion. Collider physics is all about our origins, and
this aspect alone makes it worthy of our very best attention. The
experiments conducted within the vast collider chambers are at the
forefront of humanity's quest to unweave the great tapestry that is the
universe. Everything is connected. Within the macrocosm is the
microcosm. By knowing how matter is structured, how atoms and elementary
particles interact, and what forces control the interactions between the
particles, we discover further clues as to why the universe is the way
it is, and we uncover glimpses of how everything came into being.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in the process of coming online at
CERN, is the world's largest and most complex machine. It represents the
pinnacle of human ingenuity, and its physical characteristics, costs,
and workings astound us at every turn. We are literally humbled by the
machine that has been produced through a grand international
collaboration of scientists. This book is about what those scientists
hope to discover with the LHC, for hopes do run high, and there is much
at stake. Careers, reputations and prestigious science prizes will be
realized, and possibly lost, in the wake of the results that the LHC
will produce. And there are risks, real and imagined. The LHC will probe
the very fabric of matter and it will help us understand the very weft
and the weave of the universe.
