Despite all our technological advancements, we have only been able to discover only 5 percent of the universe that we live in. But what happens to the uncovered remaining 95 percent? Well, we actually lack the technologies to discover the larger percentage of our universe. But things are about to change. A team of scientists at CERN, Switzerland’s world’s largest particle accelerator recently proposed plans to build an atom smasher named the Future Circular Collider (FCC).
The team revealed that this supercollider will focus on unveiling some hidden mysteries of our universe. It will also help in finding particles that could change physics and offer a more detailed understanding of the cosmos. The researchers said that the FCC would be more massive than its predecessor, which is the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The proposed FCC would be three times larger than LHC with a huge circumference of 91 kilometers (56 miles) and also double the depth size. However, the FCC comes with a £12 billion price tag which has created controversy as the world is currently experiencing numerous challenges.
In fact, the proposed high price tag has even led to a debate recently. Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder and other scientists criticized the project arguing that there is no guarantee that the FCC will be successful. The opposing scientists later called for a proper reevaluation of the scale and funding of particle physics research.
Prof. Sir David King, who previously served as the UK government’s chief scientific advisor said that the project’s expenditure is actually reckless. King suggested that the funding should be redirected to research funds for addressing global challenges such as the climate emergency.
Why CERN Researchers Think That the Proposed Atom Smasher is important
While many scientists criticize the proposed atom smasher, CERN’s scientists remain optimistic about the benefit of the colossal particle collider. CERN’s director general, Prof Fabiola Gianotti defended the proposed FCC revealing that it will serve as a beautiful machine that will advance humanity and generally improve our fundamental understanding of physics and also learn how the inner part of the Universe works.
The Large Hadron Collider which has been in operation since 2008 helped humanity achieve a major scientific breakthrough in 2012 when it discovered the Higgs Boson particle, which served an important component in understanding the Standard Model of sub-atomic physics.
However, many scientists still criticized the LHC project as it was not able to uncover dark matter and dark energy particles that account for about 95 percent of the Universe.
How the researchers plan to Build the Proposed FCC
CERN revealed that they will build the proposed atom smasher in two phases to address the lapses of the LHC. The first phase will involve the collision of electrons and will commence operation in the mid-2040s. The second phase will deploy heavier protons and necessitate highly advanced magnets that have not been invented yet.
This second phase will start operation in the 2070s. Scientists have been hunting for dark energy and dark matter for a while now. When researchers at CERN proposed the idea for LHC over two decades ago, they suggested that it would uncover dark matter and dark energy particles of the universe.
However, the powerful collider never accomplished this goal, which raised a lot of criticism among scientists including Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder and Prof Sir David King.
The two researchers questioned the guaranteed success of the project and suggested that the funding should be used on other global challenges. Some scientists suggested alternative ideas such as a linear collider. However, CERN remains confident that the proposed FCC will unveil the more hidden secret of our universe.
