Guide to the Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest particle accelerator complex.

You can watch CERN's LHC webcast online.

It was built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN and it lies under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva in Switzerland.

The aim of the experiment is to prove or disprove the existence of the Higgs boson, also called the 'God Particle', which is the only elementary particle that has never been observed by science.

To do this the LHC will hurl beams of protons and ions at a velocity approaching the speed of light.

These beams will then be made to collide with each other. From a record of these events the white coats hope that they will be able to figure out more about how the universe began and what it's made of.

The world’s physicists have spent 14 years and $8bn (about £5bn) building the LHC.

Play Large Hadron Collider game

The idea of building the largest particle accelerator began in the early 1980s. While there are other particle accelerators in existence this is the world's largest and uses the most energy.

The collider is contained in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27 kilometres (17 miles) at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres underground.

See the Hadron Collider in Google Earth

The LHC is a magnet for magnets: in total, over 1,600 superconducting magnets are installed, as well as 1,232 bending magnets.

The UK has provided over 17 per cent of the total cost of the running of CERN; more than any other member nation except for Germany.

The LHC has inspired students of Nostradamus all over the world to update their doomsday prophecies. They claim that the experiment will result in a black hole and ultimately the destruction of the world.

Two Americans have filed a lawsuit in Honolulu seeking a temporary restraining order preventing CERN from preceding with the experiment.

It also inspired one former employee to make a rap explaining how the LHC works.

In Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, author of the Da Vinci Code, antimatter created at the LHC is used as a weapon against the Vatican.

www.cern.ch