High energy physics might destroy the world. Or at least that’s the claim that has recently garnered a lot of press for the Large Hadron Collider, the new particle accelerator poised to start running in Switzerland this year. According to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed in Hawaii, the LHC might produce a miniature black hole that devours the earth. Or theoretical particles called “strangelets” might fly out of a collision and, with a Midas-like touch, turn the entire planet into strange matter. Or, as Princeton physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed (somewhat) sarcastically suggested to the New York Times, “The Large Hadron Collider might make dragons that might eat us up.”
To physics-philes like me, it is thrilling anytime particle accelerators make the front page of the New York Times, but impossible doomsday scenarios should not be the issue shining a spotlight on the LHC. It is infinitely more likely that the LHC will destroy our fundamental conception of the universe rather than the universe itself.
The LHC will begin colliding protons at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the physics lab outside of Geneva, Switzerland, later this year in an effort to unravel some of the most exciting questions in science. Number one on the list is the Higgs boson, or what the Nobel Prize-winning Columbia physicist Leon Lederman called the “God particle.” The Higgs is believed to be the reason that other elementary particles have mass. According to the Standard Model, the reigning theory in high energy physics, the Higgs creates a field that permeates empty space and exerts drag on matter traveling through it. Photons, or particles of light, will zoom right through the Higgs field without being affected—therefore, they remain massless and are able to travel at 186,000 miles per second, the upper limit on velocity in our universe. A Z boson, a heavy particle that mediates the weak force, will experience tremendous drag when traveling through the Higgs field, ending up with a lot of mass and traveling slower than the speed of light.
The Higgs is the last particle predicted by the Standard Model that we have yet to observe. In a sense, it is the final piece of a puzzle 30 years in the making. But instead of tying a nice bow on top of the success of the Standard Model, its discovery (or lack thereof) might open up a Pandora’s box of new questions.
Currently, the Higgs is the only way to explain why particles have mass, since the equations of the Standard Model do not provide any information about the properties of particles. “The Standard Model is a theory of interactions, so it does a fantastic job of describing the interactions between the fermions, which are the quarks and leptons, but it doesn’t tell you anything about why the quarks and the leptons are what they are. Those are just inputs into the discussion,” explained Gustaaf Brooijmans, one of the many Columbia physics professors working on the LHC. Physicists have figured out the properties of known particles, like their masses and electric charges, with the help of accelerators like Fermilab’s Tevatron, but they have not hit upon the reason why certain particles have certain characteristics. The Tevatron and other accelerators have been extremely successful at showing us what matter is. The LHC, on the other hand, might provide our first look at why matter is what it is.
Brooijmans works on ATLAS, one of the LHC’s two multipurpose detectors designed to study the results of collisions. He hopes the LHC will find fewer new particles and “something more about how it all comes together.” The answers may lie in unification of the fundamental forces, supersymmetry (which predicts every particle has a much heavier partner that the LHC could help us observe), extra dimensions, or all/none of the above. “Is there a relationship between the fact that wee see three macroscopic spatial dimensions and there are three generations of quarks or leptons?” Brooijmans speculated. “That may be a little bit too much to ask. If we can get part of the answer, it would be very nice.”
Nobody knows exactly what data will come out of the LHC. Because of the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, it could produce virtually anything—hence Arkani-Hamed’s dragon comment. “Are we likely to open a wormhole? Well, no, because it would have happened already,” Brooijmans said, dismissing the several outrageous disaster scenarios by explaining that collisions with much higher energies than those at the LHC take place between cosmic rays in the earth’s upper atmosphere all the time.
This uncertainty may be unnerving to those looking to formulate doomsday scenarios, but it is also extremely exciting. If we do not observe the Higgs, for example, we will have to rethink our notion of quantum mechanics. If we find proof of extra dimensions or supersymmetry, it might bring us one step closer to experimentally testing string theory. Whatever happens, according to Brooijmans, we will probably “need a new paradigm in terms of thinking.” Now we just have to flip the switch and wait and see.
Elizabeth Wade is a Barnard senior majoring in comparative literature. Fear of Physics runs alternate Mondays.