NEW YORK: Large Hadron Collider (LHC) broke a world energy record. It’s now smashing particles together with nearly twice as much energy as the old record, and it’s going to start churning out data next week.
The LHC at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland fires particles around a 17-mile underground tunnel and smashes them together at nearly the speed of light.
What do we gain from doing this, other than awesome-looking data patterns and maybe proving some wild physics theories?
During a Reddit AMA with several LHC physicists, Reddit user FantastiqueDutchie asked exactly that:
Explain to me like I am five: why are you doing this and what makes it important? What could we/you do with this data in the future?
The physicists gave some fantastic answers.
