What's Really Happening At CERN

The world’s most astonishing science experiment, simply explained.
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On the border between France and Switzerland is the biggest science experiment humanity has ever built. Over a 100 meters underground, there’s a tunnel 27 kilometers long in a big loop under nearby homes, businesses, and farms. Inside that tunnel, scientists built a blue tube big enough to crawl through, and inside that tube, they put two pipes that they keep colder and emptier than outer space. Down those pipes, they fire particles smaller than atoms in opposite directions…. and push them faster and faster… until when they’re almost at the speed of light… they SMASH TOGETHER.

This underground particle-smasher is also known as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It took thousands of scientists from over nearly 100 different countries $5 billion dollars and 30 years to plan and build.

My question is: Why? Why did they do that??? Why spend so much money and time to smash particles underground? And now… why do so many scientists say what we really need to do is build… a BIGGER one?

To answer those questions, we’re going on a journey all the way to Switzerland, to the particle smasher itself! And you’re never going to see yourself or the world around you the same way…

Chapters:
0:00 What’s happening at CERN?
1:31 What is the Large Hadron Collider?
2:32 How did they build the Large Hadron Collider?
3:43 How small is a proton?
4:51 How do they get protons to hit each other??
6:43 Why build this?
7:43 What happens when particles smash together?
8:47 What are elementary particles?
9:37 What is the Higgs Boson?
10:46 What did they find??
11:33 Why does this matter?
12:52 Why build a bigger collider?
13:48 What is the Future Circular Collider?
14:56 What else could we build?
15:56 Who do we want to be?

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Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.

Additional reading and watching:
“Inside the World's Largest Science Experiment,” by Dianna Cowern, Physics Girl:    • Inside the World's Largest Science Ex...  
“The Higgs Boson, Part I,” by Minute Physics:    • The Higgs Boson, Part I  
“The Higgs boson at 10 years,” by Dr Clara Nellist (one of our wonderful experts in this video!):    • The Higgs boson at 10 years  
“The Large Hadron Collider beam pipe: everything you didn't know you wanted to know,” by Dr Clara Nellist:    • The Large Hadron Collider beam pipe: ...  
“The Higgs Discovery Explained - Ep. 1” by CERN:    • The Higgs Discovery Explained - Ep. 1...  
“The Higgs Discovery Explained - Ep. 2” by CERN:    • The Higgs Discovery Explained - Ep. 2...  
“The Higgs Discovery Explained - Ep. 3” by CERN:    • The Higgs Discovery Explained - Ep. 3...  
“Seeing the Smallest Thing in the Universe,” by Dianna Cowern, Physics Girl:    • Seeing the Smallest Thing in the Univ...  

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Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro

Music: Musicbed, Tom Fox

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—
Welcome to the joke down low:

Why did the Higgs Field get invited to church?
They wanted to have mass.

Find a way to use “mass” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who made it to the end of the description :)