Recreating the Big Bang

Matter that is presently found in the universe is approximately thirteen billion years old. This matter includes living beings, stars, galaxies and planets of the universe.

Scientists believe that universe originated from one single point of energy. This point with high intense energy got unimaginably high causing an explosion which lead to the manifestation of this universe. This magnanimous explosion is termed by astrophysicists as the Big Bang. In the first few moments after the Big Bang, the temperature of the universe was billions of degrees hotter than anywhere else in the universe today. This heat energy imparted extraordinary kinetic energy to the particles making them behave differently from particles in today’s universe. They had far higher collision frequencies and energies. This high heat sustained formation of only sub-atomic particles like quarks and photons.

One tenth of a second later, due to cooling and fusion, protons and neutrons were generated. These fusion reactions continued as temperatures dropped, to form atomic nuclei of hydrogen and helium. Atoms were formed over the course of time. Gravity caused atoms to cluster together forming stars and galaxies. Over billions of years, hydrogen and helium atoms fused to form heavier nuclei such as carbon, silicon, metals and heavy matter. The theory of Big Bang is confirmed by astrophysicists based on the expanding nature of the universe. The light emitted by distant galaxies is found to be moving away from our galaxy, the Milky Way. With the big bang, matter was thrown away from a central point of high intensity towards the periphery and so, low levels of microwaves are seen through space at -270oC.

These are the remnants of extremely high-temperature radiations produced by the Big Bang. Further, astronomers confirm that the temperature of the gas from ancient clouds seems hotter than younger clouds as observed through high-power telescopes. Big Bang theory is further established through, the relative amounts of different elements in the universe. Scientists have shown, with theoretical calculations, that the relative abundances of different elements such as Carbon, hydrogen, etc. could exist only if the universe was in a very hot dense state, which rapidly cooled and expanded.

If these conditions do not exist anymore, how do scientists study the behavior of matter in the early universe? One of the most powerful tools created for this analysis is the particle accelerator, Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It allows physicists to recreate conditions seconds after the Big Bang by producing a beam of fast-moving particles which can come together through high-energy collisions. On September 10th, CERN - the largest centre of particle physics research in the world, switched on the LHC to recreate the moment of just a billionth of a second after the Big bang.

Now answers to profound questions about the birth of our universe like- What is mass? What is dark matter? Why is there no anti-matter? Are extra dimensions and parallel universes a scientific fact or fiction, could now be answered. It has taken CERN 20 years of preparation, 10 billion dollars and more than 10,000 scientists from 70 countries for this great scientific endeavour in studying our universe.

For the first time, physicists created a new form of matter by recreating the conditions thought to have existed 10 microseconds after the Big Bang. Scientists from more than 20 countries conducted a series of experiments which smashed together heavy lead ions in a fireball to prove a theory that had existed only on paper. By generating collisions at temperatures 100,000 times as hot as the sun's center and at energy densities never reached earlier in laboratory experiments, they isolated tiny components called quarks from protons and neutrons. This furnished evidence for the existence of new nuclear matter, a quark-gluon plasma where quarks and gluons exist clumped together.

In this largely European experiment, India has provided about 40 million dollars worth of resources. The arms of the LHR as well as the jacks on which it rests, are constructed in India. A large 15 metre long magnet of the LHR was tested by the Indian team. The detectors as well as the microchips used for the detectors were manufactured by the Electronics Corporation of India.

To remind the world of India's deep philosophical understanding of the evolution of the universe, India gifted CERN a giant bronze statue of Natraja- Lord Shiva performing his balancing act, the dance of cosmic creation and destruction. Results of the CERN experiments could provide answers about dark matter, antimatter and hidden dimensions of space and time. It could lead to discovering the Higgs boson, the single point that gave mass to all other particles, creating the universe. The "Little Bang,'' created by CERN is an important step in understanding the early state of the universe’s Big Bang.