300 ft underground in a 17-mile ring, protons will be colliding 30 million times a second at 99.999…% the speed of light in an effort to recreate energy that only existed when the universe was thousandths of a second old, which will supposedly enlighten us about many secrets of the universe. But, maybe it will do nothing or maybe it will destroy us.

There is no way of being sure that any black holes created in this process will decay. There is no way of knowing what will happen when this energy is suddenly reborn. There are so many unknowns, but we are pushing forward in the spirit of discovery. But never before has so much been at stake.

More than $8 billion has gone into the creation of this massive experiment, it involves a magnet 100,000 x the strength of the earth’s magnetic field, it’s 17 miles around, and it’s being run by 5,000 physicists.

Let’s hope all of their theories are correct.

Keep your fingers crossed this summer.

Large Hadron Collider Official Website

European Organization for Nuclear Research

Interactive Diagram of the LHC

CERN EXPLAINED IN 3 MINUTES

LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

YIKES!