Physicists are hoping a new particle accelerator will help them answer some of the biggest questions in the universe. Teachers will soon have teaching resources to follow the launch next year of the Large Hadron Collider at the Cern laboratory for particle physics in Geneva.
Experts say the new particle accelerator will recreate some of the conditions in the universe a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the first time this has been done.
It will help scientists probe the biggest questions in astrophysics, such as how and why the universe developed as it did. Posters and leaflets are being made available to teachers in January. Lesson plans, videos, animations and simple games will be produced for the summer term - aimed at GCSE and A-level.
Andrew Morrison, schools officer at the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, which is producing the material, said: “Everybody is fascinated about where we came from. This won’t give us all the answers but it should help probe the biggest questions.”
* Email andrew.morrison@pparc.ac.uk or call 01793 442175.
