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The Large Hadron Collider

Today was the first test of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), this £5 billion project has been created to let us investigate the particles that make up matter and hopes to re-create the conditions at the time of the Big Bang.

The machine is situated 100 meters under the ground in Geneva at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). If you are a Dan Brown fan you may remember this is where Robert Langdon is taken to at the beginning of the novel "Angels and Demons".

Scientists always insisted that smashing protons together at close to the speed of light was "perfectly safe", however some members of the scientific community had voiced concerns that tiny black holes may be created and cause potential havoc; growing uncontrollably and destroying the planet. However, scientists on the project believe black holes could be created but they would only exist for tiny fractions of time. This has been rationalised by the fact that protons regularly collide in Earths upper atmosphere and the Earth still exists.

It may be a year or two before any meaningful discoveries are made from the project but hopes are that it may explain the origins of time, explain dark matter, possibly reveal other dimensions and to explain why gravity works the way it does.

So what do people think, is this a massive waste of money? Should scientists be trying to solve more practical problems? Or could this be a defining moment in the history of scientific invention?