Restored machine to explore mysteries of Big Bang theory

GENEVA (AP) — Scientists are preparing the world’s largest atom smasher to explore the depths of matter after successfully restarting the $10 billion machine after more than a year of repairs.

When the machine is fully operational, its magnets will control the beams of protons and send them in opposite directions through two parallel tubes the size of fire hoses.

In rooms as large as cathedrals 300 feet under the Swiss-French border, the magnets will force them into huge detectors to record the reactions.

One goal is to unravel the mysteries of the Big Bang that many scientists theorize marked the creation of the universe billions of years ago.

The restart of the Large Hadron Collider late Friday was hailed as a significant leap forward in efforts to launch new experiments — probably in January — on the makeup of matter and the universe.

The machine was heavily damaged by a simple electrical fault in September last year.

The nuclear physicists working on it were surprised at how quickly they got beams of protons whizzing through the 17-mile circular tunnel underground late Friday.

“That was all wrapped up by midnight. They are going through the paces really very fast,” said James Gillies, spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known by the acronym CERN, for its original French name.

Things went so well Friday evening that scientists achieved the operation seven hours earlier than expected, he said. Some scientists had gone home early Friday and had to be called back as the project jumped ahead, Gillies added.

Praise from scientists around the world was quick.

“I congratulate the scientists and engineers that have worked to get the LHC back up and running,” said Dennis Kovar of the U.S. Department of Energy, which participates in the project. He called the machine “unprecedented in size, in complexity, and in the scope of the international collaboration that has built it over the last 15 years.”

CERN decided Saturday to test all the protection equipment while there still is a very low-intensity proton beam circulating in the collider. The tests will take 10 days, Gillies said.

He said CERN decided against immediately testing the collider’s ability to speed up the beams to higher energy or to start with low-energy collisions that would help scientist calibrate their detection equipment.

With great fanfare, CERN circulated its first beams Sept. 10, 2008. But the machine was sidetracked nine days later when a badly soldered electrical splice overheated and set off a chain of damage to the magnets and other parts of the collider.