大型强子对撞机正在加紧运行
Mar 31st 2010 | From The Economist print edition
EIGHTEEN months ago CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory, based near Geneva, switched on its latest toy. The toy in question was the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and it was going to find all sorts of wonderful things, ranging from the Higgs boson (which is needed to explain why mass exists in the first place) via dark matter (which is needed to explain why the universe is as massive as it is) to miniature black holes (the densest concentrations of mass possible, which journalists of a more scaremongering disposition confidently predicted would eat the Earth up as soon as the machine was switched on).
十八个月前，位于日内瓦附近的欧洲粒子物理研究所（欧洲的粒子物理实验室）启动了它的新玩物。这一热议中的玩物便是大型强子对撞机（LHC），从希格斯玻色子（用于解释为何会有质量的存在）到暗物质（用于解释为何宇宙会膨胀得如此浩大）再到迷你黑洞（宇宙间可能存在的密度最大的事物，一些好煽动的新闻记者曾自信地预言随着该对撞机的启动，迷你黑洞将吞灭整个地球），LHC被赋予了寻找到各种美妙事物的厚望。
Nine days after the fanfare, however, a leak in the cooling system put things on hold and they did not restart until last November, with a few gentle collisions between low-energy protons.
在热闹的开启仪式结束后的第九天，冷却系统的一处泄露使得此事搁置，直到去年十一月大型对撞机才得以重新启动，然而也只试验了一些低能质子之间的轻微碰撞。
Since then, the LHC has been cranking up for serious operation and on March 30th it passed a milestone. There was less trumpeting this time, but protons were made to hit each other at energies higher than any accelerator had managed before. The Tevatron, in America, has officially been relegated to second place.
从那时起，LHC开始为更重要的实验做准备。三月三十日，它终于有了新的突破。这一次的大肆宣传显然淡了很多，然而此次质子被加速到了更快的速度，因而产生了更高的碰撞能量，这是以往任何加速器都未曾办到的。美国的兆电子伏特加速器Tevatron，至此正式退居第二。
Once, that might have been a signal for a bit of quiet European gloating. Hubris, however, has been followed by nemesis rather too often in this field for anybody to be making a song and dance about things. Though there was cheering and champagne in the control room when the first high-energy beams collided, sighs of relief are more the order of the day.
要是在过去，这可能会成为一种信号，让欧洲人都来一番悄无声息的沾沾自喜。可是， 在这个领域里，骄傲得到惩罚报应的例子已经屡见不鲜了，所以，再没人会为一点小成就喋喋不休了。尽管第一次高能粒子束碰撞成功以后，控制室传来了欢呼且有人开香槟以庆祝，然而，如释重负仍然是那一天的主旋律。
Assuming there are no further glitches, the energy of the collisions will be cranked up over the next few months and the new subatomic goodies will start pouring out of the machine and into the pages of physics journals. Finding the Higgs boson is as near a racing certainty as exists in science. For the rest, those who fancy pitting their knowledge of physics against the pros can do so. Paddy Power, an online bookmaker, is offering odds of 11 to 10 that dark matter will be found before black holes and 8 to 1 that black holes will be first. Dark energy, a mysterious force thought to drive the expansion of the universe, trails at 12 to 1. And for those who fancy a real outside bet, the firm is also offering 100 to 1 that the machine will discover God.
如果没有更多的故障，未来几个月内碰撞的能量仍会持续增高，并将产生新的亚原子，从对撞机里流向物理学期刊的篇章中。找到希格斯玻色子是在科学世界存在的最可能发生的事情。至于其余粒子的发现顺序，那些想在物理知识上与专家们较量一番的人也有机会一试身手。在线签****************公司Paddy Power为暗物质先于黑洞被发现开出的****************为11比10，为黑洞首先被发现开出的****************为8比1。而被认为是导致宇宙膨胀的神秘力量暗物质首先被发现的****************为12比1。除此之外，对于那些热衷于外围****************的人，该公司甚至开出了对撞机发现上帝的****************：100比1。
