Large Hadron Collider

Finally, the LHC research program gets under way.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is working properly after its operation was halted due to several technical problems. The 10 billion Swiss franc “physics machine” was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to answer key unresolved questions about the particles, the smallest known building-parts of the universe. By launching this program in 1994, the 20-nation consortium CERN has become a world-leader in nuclear research and it is outpacing rapidly the rivals as the American Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. In the second part of 2008, the first attempt to start the Collider ended shamefully after ten days as an explosion left part of the tunnel enveloped in helium gas and the electrical connection between the two powerful magnets that steer the protons ceased. Following nearly two years of careful reparation, the experiment was resumed at the end of March this year with promising results even in the first two weeks.

The LHC, which is a 27-km oval-shaped ring of superconducting electromagnets under the Swiss-French border, seek to collide two beams of particles at a nano-fraction, close to the speed of light. Scientists circulate one beam in one direction around the accelerator, one in the other later colliding them to each other generating temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the heart of the sun. Meanwhile, the cooling system keeps the machine at -271 °C (a temperature colder then the outer space) by circulating fluid helium around the accelerator ring. At its full power, 600 millions of collisions take place every second, each proton travelling around the accelerator ring 11,245 times a second at 99.99% the speed of light.

“We’ll address soon some of the major puzzles of modern physics…I expect very exciting times in front of us,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesperson of the CMS experiment. Among the top goals of this research program is to find the identity of the dark matter that is believed to make out 96 % of the universe, to analyze the difference between matter and anti-matter, to create conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang, and to search for further hidden dimensions of space. For this, the Collider needs to run for 18-24 months constantly and the obtained data is transferred in a distributed computer network called the Grid, to allow thousands of scientists to process the results. The LHC is far the largest attempt ever made to find out the mysteries of universe.

Iceland Focus

The air traffic is seriously diverted in Northern Europe after a volcano has erupted in Iceland for the second time in a month.



After a volcano beneath the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier erupted on Wednesday, several Northern European countries closed their airports to avoid serious damages in the aircrafts. Until now, around 6,000 flights were cancelled directly affecting more than half a million of people in UK, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, France and Poland. Moreover, as Heathrow is the second largest airport in the world the volcanic ash had a global effect on air-travel. So far, officials do not know when the chaotic situation is going to redress as the volcano is still continuing to erupt and to spew ash which has a movement in the atmosphere dependent on the meteorological conditions and the direction of the wind.

When a volcano is emplacing ash to the altitude that commercial aircraft fly, at 30,000 feet, and the upper-level wind is very lame, the ash cloud became slow and dense causing a serious hazard to aviation. It damages flight controls, reduces visibility and in the worst case jams jet engines that become full of molten glass if small, fine particles of heated sand and rock reach them. In this situation, only emergency flights are allowed to use the closed airspace and passengers are advised to contact the airports for further information. After the air travel is going to resume further complications are expected due to the vast number of cancelled flights.

The Polish Tragedy

On April 10, 2010, the Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed in a tragic plane accident near Smolensk, Russia along with other 95 people.

Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia. The Polish President was going to the small town of Katyn in Russia to mark 70 years since the Katyn massacre where in the Second World War the Soviet secret police shoot dead more than 20,000 Polish prisoners of war mainly form the political, cultural and military elite. The occasion was also an attempt to improve the variable Russian-Polish relationship.

This tragedy virtually left Poland without many of its most important persons in the state. The victims of the crash include Aleksander Szczyglo, the head of National Security Office, Slawomir Skrzypek, head of the National Bank of Poland, General Franciszek Gagor, the army chief of staff, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, the deputy parliament speaker and Andrzej Kremer, the deputy foreign minister. “The entire top military brass, including the chief defense and all the services were on the plane. If that is true, then you’re looking at a situation, in effect, of the decapitation of the military services,” said Tomas Valasek, Director of foreign policy and defense at the Center for European Reform. The former Speaker Bronislaw Komorowski is now acting president for the next 60 days until the presidential elections take place.

Polish Prime Minister Dunald Tusk and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went to Smolensk on Saturday night to pay tribute to the victims. The plane accident happened a few miles from Katyn, close to Smolensk, at 11 o’clock in the morning. The flight tried to land in heavy fog conditions, although, the traffic control in Smolensk warned the pilot about the weather problems and tried to divert the plane to another airport. The causes of the fatal tragedy are to be investigated but speculations already exist. One of the problematic facts is the plane itself, which was a Tupolev Tu.154 airliner, a standard Russian airliner used nowadays in Russia and some parts of Eastern Europe. The Polish government received criticism in the past because of the state of their aircraft base. This presidential plane was 20 years old but it was refurbished and repaired last year. The other query is the pilot’s firm decision to land on the Smolensk airport despite the dangerous meteorological conditions.

Lech Kaczynski was brought back to Warsaw Sunday afternoon. The line of the limousines carrying the body of the president passed many important avenues in the city, full of the mourning crowd who also placed countless flowers, candles and written condolences in front of the Presidential Palace in Warsaw. “Today in the face of such drama our nation stays united. There is no division into left or right, differences of views don’t matter. We are together in the face of this tragedy,” said Bronislaw Komorowski in a televised address to the nation. He also declared a week of national mourning. The funeral will take place on Saturday when President Lech Kaczynski will be buried with his wife whose body was identified only on Monday.