Particle Accelerator Welcomes Time-Traveler

In a press released issued by the UK's Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), it is revealed that CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research), the world's largest particle accelerator is having a little fun.

The brainchild of University of Manchester, UK, physicist Dr. Brian Cox, a series of podcasts will be produced that take a fun approach to presenting the world's most ambitious and possibly most important experiment to date to the general public. The new experiment is called the Large Hadron Collider or LHC and while it is in the final stages of preparation before the big May 2008 power-up various famous personages will pay visits to the LHC.

It is these visits that will be filmed and presented as podcasts available on YouTube.com and at STFC. The visitors will have a chance to tour the massive facility that comprises LHC and along the way have fun chats with particle physicists about the inner workings of the four experiments within LHC: ATLAS, Alice, CMS, and LHCb.

The inaugural tour has been given and the first podcast is now available for viewing. It is a riot. The first person of prestige to be chosen to kick-off the series is one John Barrowman, an American-born British actor and singer. His current claim to BBC fame is as Captain Jack, a Time-Traveler on the shows Doctor Who and Torchwood.

A fitting choice that a time-traveler should be the first to see inside CERN's LHC. His visits was to Alice and ATLAS. As he approached Alice one of his comments was, "It's just like something from out of Star Gate!" spoken with appropriate awe.

The podcast incorporates explanations and illustrations of the science that will be conducted within the experiments of LHC once it is powered-up. The questions for which answers are being sought are the most fundamental to human experience and bear upon the reasons for the existence of our universe to start with. For example: Why is there more matter than antimatter? Where did all the antimatter go?

Experiments in LHC will re-create conditions that have not existed since split seconds after the original cataclysmic event that began the subatomic journey that eventually resulted in our universe. Dr. Cox sincerely believes that everyone is interested in the answers to these questions, which is why he has pioneered the CERN podcast series.

I would definitely take a look at the John Barrowman podcast. It is a delight. Never has learning physics been so lively and amusing. Imagine dyed-in-the-wool particle physicists explaining the hunt for b-quarks, the Higgs boson, or quark luon plasma to Captain Jack.... There is also a very wittily written short explanation of the science available to you on the STFC Web site.

As STFC quotes Dr. Cox as saying: "I passionately believe that everyone is interested in the answers to the fundamental questions...about the origins and fundamental building blocks of our world...We...