COSMIC CONNECTIONS

Replica of Ernest Lawrence’s first cylcotron, on exhibition in the CERN Globe of Innovation.
Like the original, it is only a few centimetres across Photograph: Wimox/Wikimedia

Sizing up a new particle accelerator, and the 'cosmic stupid' limit

Now, let us assume that the effective cross section for the inelastic scattering of two cosmic rays is of the size of the Universe.

Physics is in an interesting position, now that the Higgs boson has been discovered. The “Standard Model” doesn’t predict any more new particles, no matter how tiny, and it could be considered internally complete. However, it is very far from being a theory of everything, failing to account for such major experimental facts as gravity, the different amounts of matter and antimatter in the universe, and the 85% or so of stuff that seems to be “Dark Matter”. It also struggles with neutrinos.