In the past, I have written about Francis Osora Ezengige who was the first genius I encountered. He was two years ahead of me in high school. During long vacations, when he visited Nnobi, he spent his time teaching science to my friends and I. He explained to me why a piece of yam changes color when cut up and left in the open.
In the past, I have written about Francis Osora Ezengige who was the first genius I encountered. He was two years ahead of me in high school. During long vacations, when he visited Nnobi, he spent his time teaching science to my friends and I. He explained to me why a piece of yam changes color when cut up and left in the open.
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Long before he made First Class in Engineering at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, Francis told me that if scientists succeed in building something that can travel faster than light, they will travel back into the past. Scientists can go deep into space and recapture the sun rays that came down to earth some two thousand years ago. In those rays are still the films of Jesus Christ while he was on earth. Using the same technology that the video camera uses, scientists will be able to reproduce the films and see if Jesus really fed 5000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish.
By now, I know most of you will be shaking your heads, wondering if that is ever possible. When I first heard the theory, some twenty years ago, I thought the same too. Little did I know that as early as 1954, twelve Western European nations have established the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Initially, the laboratory was supposed to study atomic nucleus. But soon, it went into the study of high-energy physics, especially in the area of particles interactions.
Today, CERN, located in the suburbs of Geneva, at the border between France and Switzerland, employs over 2600 people and 10,000 scientists and engineers. Over 500 universities and 100 countries are now involved in researches going on there. It is the birthplace of the World Wide Web. Researchers in its facilities have won two Nobel Prize for Physics, and its budget for the year 2008 was over $1billion.
These scientists have been working on several research projects using sophisticated equipment like the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP), the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSP), the Low-Energy Ion Ring (LEIR), Low Energy Antiproton Ring (LEAR), and the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS).
The SPS is a 2 kilometers wide circular accelerator built in a tunnel. It is designed to deliver energy of up to 450 GeV. It works as proton-antiproton collider. It is also used to accelerate high-energy electrons and positrons for injection into the Large Electron-Positron Collider. In 2008, it was used to inject protons and heavy ions into the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The LHC is the big deal. At 25 km in length, it is the largest machine in the world. It is buried hundred meters inside the ground. Right there, scientists are performing experiments that will change the world as we know it.
Our understanding of the world is incomplete. We don’t know a lot of things about particles and why they have masses. We don’t know what the universe is made of and why it continues to expand. And scientists are unwilling to throw their hands in the air and say, God created the world, end of story.
What scientists are doing with the LHC accelerator is to position two particles to travel in opposite directions at a speed close to the speed of light. Using magnets to direct the particles, scientists squeeze them together until they collide. Their hope is that previously unknown and unseen particles will be discovered as a result of this collision. The experiment is a reenactment of what is believed to have happened at the point of creation, some 13.7 billion years ago, during the Big Bang. Scientists believe it will confirm some existing theories of physics, like the Higgs Particles and open door to new ones. It will also shed some light into the existence of parallel worlds and multiple universes.
The Higgs Particles is a theory that says that particles had no mass after the Big Bang. But when the temperature fell around the bang site, it created an invisible force field. Particles become heavier when they interact with the field. If scientists are able to identify the Higgs Particles, it will provide proof that there are dark matters, a theory proposed by Peter Higgs.
If not, it will be a setback that will have scientists rethinking their understanding of the world. Results of the test done last year will begin to appear in 5 to 10 years. A bigger test at a faster speed is scheduled for 2012.
Skeptics are troubled that the experiment will create black holes that will suck up life on Earth. Those who believe this are suing to stop CERN scientists from carrying further experiments along this line.
Black holes form when stars die and collapse on each other. These black holes suck up everything around them. When the sun (which is our 4.5 billion year-old star) burns out, some 4.5 billion years from now, it will form a black hole that will suck up the earth and all the planets.
It is believed that these experiments at CERN will create black holes. Scientists say that these black holes will be too small to suck up life. Even if scientists fail to find Higgs Particles or to understand the black holes, their experiments at CERN have already created the grid. The grid is called the next generation of the internet that will be 10,000 times faster than what we use now.
And since scientists already have particles in LHC travelling at almost the speed of light, it won’t be long before they recapture, deep inside space, the sun rays that came to earth some 2000 years ago. And they will find out, if truly Judas got thirty pieces of silver for betraying Jesus.
Please correct me if I’m right.
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