Largest atom crusher to have ‘Made in India’ tag
MUMBAI: The heart of the world’s largest atom-smashing machine will have a ‘Made in India’ tag on its most crucial components, L Evans, director of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research’s (Cern) large hadron collider (LHC) project told ET
In the city to receive the one thousandth ultra high-tech superconducting magnet from Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Mr Evans paid tributes to India’s contribution to the atom smasher of the 21st century, being built at an estimated cost of $3bn at the Franco-Swiss border for inauguration in ‘05. Mr Kakodkar described LHC as “scientifically and engineering-wise the most challenging project ever undertaken by mankind and we’re extremely happy to be associated with it.”
The LHC, he added, is the largest superconducting installation in the world, with a 27 km circumference built in a tunnel 100 metres underground. When completed the LHC will collide beams of protons at an energy of 14 TeV. (TeV is a unit of energy used in particle physics. 1 TeV is about the energy of motion of a flying mosquito. However, what makes the LHC extraordinary is that it squeezes energy into a space about a million, million times smaller than a mosquito). Beams of lead nuclei will also be accelerated nearly to the speed of light and smashed together with a collision energy of 1,150 TeV.
All this will recreate energy densities similar to those found in the first fraction of a second after the universe was born. The LHC’s atomic collisions will thus take scientists back to the very threshold of Big Bang itself, enabling them to handle bold questions about matter and its ultimate constituents. “Incidentally, the LHC’s giant detectors will handle as much information as the entire European telecommunications network does today,” Mr Evans told ET. “They will stand up to 20 metres high. At their centres, protons will collide some 800m times a second. Understanding what happens in these collisions will be the key to LHC’s success.”
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Along with the US, Japan, Russia and Canada, India is among the select non-CERN member countries taking part in the creation of the LHC. The Indian contribution, which the CERN director general Luciano Maiani earlier described as ‘visible and valuable’, consists of supplying hi-tech components and software and other support in kind, worth nearly $60m. Dileep Bhawalkar, director, Department of Atomic Energy’s centre for advanced technology at Indore, which is co-ordinating this effort described it as “a great opportunity for Indian industry”, which could garner 90% of the manufacturing contribution and also a fantastic learning trip for Indian universities and research institutes.”**