Big new particle accelerator doesn't

Vocabulary flash cards for today's curriculum:
a. Higgs particle/Higgs boson
b. Large Hadron Collider

The biggest and latest "atom smasher" is just giving those atoms a gentle squeeze. Like Mr. Whipple the shopkeeper squeezing the Charmin toilet paper in the old commercials.

That's right, the Large Hadron Collider, a huge, high-profile international project that spans the French/Swiss border for several miles in each direction is not working that well. It's by far the biggest and meanest particle accelerator ever and but doesn't. It doesn't accelerate the particles that much. That's right, some of the scads of magnets that are supposed to accelerate particles to amazing velocities aren't working that well so far. So the particles aren't going that fast (relatively speaking) and their collisions are kind of on the wimpy side. More like fender benders than collisions.

It's kind of like asking the Tin Man to chop trees without enough oil to swing his arms fast.

But don't worry, they will fix it. Notwithstanding the satirical prose above, the engineers, scientists and construction teams building the LHC are a dedicated and ingenious group that are sure to make everything right.

And when they do, perhaps they will find that elusive Higgs particle. The hypothetical but as-yet-undetected particle that bestows the property of mass on all subatomic particles have mass. And maybe they will get clues about the mysterious dark matter that is supposed to account for 25% of the universe's mass (~weight) but also has never been seen.

So while the accelerator isn't accelerating that much, at least the dark matter is still living up to its name by remaining dark for now.