Two Minutes

At work on the world's biggest science experiment

Soeren Prell, an Iowa State University associate professor of physics and astronomy, is one of about 10,000 scientists and engineers collaborating on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland.

The Large Hadron Collider: The $8 billion, 17-miles-around collider is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. It will accelerate protons or lead ions to nearly the speed of light, crash them together and track all the particles that fly off. Physicists hope the collider can help answer basic questions about the origin of mass, dark matter and antimatter.

Matter and antimatter: Prell most recently collaborated on the BaBar experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif. That experiment focused on identifying differences between matter and antimatter.

What's it matter? "While we directly address big questions of nature such as, 'Why is there a universe made of matter?' many fields including health care, life sciences, information technology and electronics are benefitting from technological innovations made in the development of particle physics experiments," Prell said. "For example, the World Wide Web was originally invented at CERN to make it easier for physicists to share information."

Physics in pop culture: "Angels & Demons," the novel by Dan Brown and the movie directed by Ron Howard, features a powerful bomb fueled by antimatter created at the Large Hadron Collider. Prell can tell you that in the real world such a bomb would be impossible. And he doesn't mind explaining the facts and fictions of the story: "I think it's good to comment on the science of the movie so we can reduce misconceptions about what our research is capable of doing before the wrong pictures settle in people's minds."

-- Mike Krapfl