By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Reuters) - Physicists around the world, some inpyjamas and others with champagne, celebrated the first testson Wednesday of a huge particle-smashing machine they hope willsimulate the "Big Bang" that created the universe.
Experiments using the underground Large Hadron Collider, orLHC, the biggest and most complex machine ever made, couldrevamp modern physics and unlock secrets about the universe andits origins.
Staff in the control room on the border of Switzerland andFrance clapped as two beams of particles were sent silentlyfirst one way and then the other around the LHC's 17-mile(27-km) underground chamber.
"Things can go wrong at any time," said project leader LynEvans, who wore jeans and running shoes for the LHC's debut.
"But this morning we had a great start."
It will be weeks or months before two particles ever crashtogether in the giant tube, and even longer before scientistscan interpret results, said Jos Engelen, chief scientificofficer of CERN, the European Organization for NuclearResearch.
"Anything between a year and four years, depending on howdifficult this new physics is to find," Engelen said.
Pyjama-clad scientists calling themselves "Nerds inNightshirts" partied at the Fermi National AcceleratorLaboratory in Batavia, Illinois as they waited late into thenight for the first signals from the 10 billion Swiss franc (5billion pound) machine.
The first blip came soon after the LHC was switched on at9:30 a.m. CERN time, 1:30 a.m. in Batavia, home of theTevatron, which still lays claim to being the highest energyparticle collider until the LHC starts colliding protons.
THE WORLD DIDN'T END
Physicists brushed off suggestions that the experimentcould create tiny black holes that could suck in the planet.
"The worries that scientists had were nothing to do withbeing swallowed up by black holes and everything to do withtechnical hitches or electronic failure," said Jim al-Khalili,a physicist at Britain's University of Surrey.
"Now, after a collective sigh of relief, the real funstarts," al-Khalili said. "No matter what we find, we will beunlocking the secrets of the universe."
The LHC will send beams of subatomic particles calledprotons whizzing around the tube at just under the speed oflight.
The hope is they will smash into one another and explode ina burst of new and previously unseen types of particles --recreating on a miniature scale the heat and energy of the BigBang that gave birth to the universe 13.7 billion years ago.
At full speed the LHC will engineer 600 million collisionsevery second. Data will be transmitted via a network called TheGrid to scientists at 170 institutions in 33 countries.
"It is sort of a virtual United Nations," said MichaelTuts, a physics professor at Columbia University in New Yorkand program manager for 400 U.S. physicists working on one LHCproject.
The experiments could confirm the existence of the HiggsBoson, a theoretical particle named after Peter Higgs, whofirst proposed it in 1964.
Also referred to as the "God particle," the Higgs Bosoncould help explain how matter has mass. "I think it's prettylikely" that it will be found, Higgs told reporters at theUniversity of Edinburgh, where he is a retired professor ofphysics.
Scientists halted the particle beam's counter-clockwisespin temporarily on Wednesday afternoon after problems with themachine's magnets caused its temperature to warm slightly.
CERN officials said such minor glitches were to be expectedgiven the intricacy of the machine, which is cooled to minus271.3 degrees Celsius (minus 456.3 degrees Fahrenheit).
(Additional reporting by Michael Kahn in London, LauraMacInnis in Geneva, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Maggie Foxin Washington; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
