Question: what is so exciting about using the largest science machine to look at tiny particles and would you like to focus on some thing difrent to science

Deepak Kar answered on 7 Mar 2014:

I am glad you asked!

I would answer the easy part first, Yes, although I love my work, I also have many other interests. I love travelling, and so far I have been to 31 countries. It is so much fun to see a new place, new culture. If I dont do science at some point anymore, I would like to be a travel photographer!

Right, so why we need a big machine? If you think of everyday life, to break up stuff into small pieces, you need energy, right? The smaller the pieces you want, more energy you need. So to breakup the tiny particles into tinier ones, we need a lot of energy. What the big machine does is make particles go around the 27km ring faster and faster, so that they have a lot of energy when they collide against another particle, and breakup into the pieces they are made of. You can think of it as like you are rotating a small stone tied to the end of the string. The more times you rotate it, or the larger the circle is, it gains more speed. More speed means more energy.

Now why it is exciting? We all want to know what things are made of right? We want to know the basic building blocks of nature, and this is the only way to reach it.