KEY POINTS:
Last week a needle-thin beam of subatomic particles called protons was threaded along a 27km circular tunnel beneath the outer suburbs of Geneva, Switzerland, and physicists in New Zealand rejoiced.
This first lap run around the tunnel by the protons was merely a baby step of the world's largest physics experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, or simply the LHC.
In a couple of months there will be two proton beams: one rotating clockwise and the other counter-clockwise 11,000 times every second. Physicists will steer these beams into head-on collisions.
These "little bangs" will replicate for a very short time and in a very tiny volume of space, the searing, scalding, energy rich conditions thought to have existed in the nascent universe.
The little bangs are humanity's best attempt to simulate the "Big Bang" origin of the universe.
International media networks like the BBC and CNN provided round-the-clock coverage on this initial proton practice run. Somehow the LHC has attracted the kind of media attention previously enjoyed by the lunar landings, global warming and Madonna. Why has this happened?
Demonstrably false rumours of earth-gobbling black holes, or other exotic doomsday scenarios, make for fun fantasy. We all like to be scared, which is why Stephen King's books have earned him a fortune.
But the proof - stellar objects older and denser than earth still exist folks - trumps all false rumours. Again, why all the genuine media interest?
There are two reasons for this attention. The first is the tacit recognition that knowledge, education and innovation will drive the economic and culturally dominant countries of the 21st century. The second and more important reason is the sheer audacity of this attempt to understand human origins.
The gargantuan Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator was constructed over the past 15 years at the European Centre for Nuclear and Particle Physics Research (CERN) by an impressive international collaboration of 85 countries and over 10,000 engineers and scientists. It was the home for the development of the World Wide Web.
New Zealand became a non-member state nation in CERN in December 2003, via the signing of a memorandum-of-understanding. This agreement allows New Zealand to send students and researchers to the centre for upskilling in electronics and computing, for education in radiation detector operation, for technology transfer, for advanced physics training, and full access to all the data resulting from the planned 20-year lifetime of the collider for experimental physics.
Just as the Hubble Space Telescope is an extension of our senses to the farthest regions of outer space, the collider is an extension of our senses to the infinitesimal depths of inner space.
The current best theoretical models imply that in the young universe all particles that we know, and perhaps shy relatives of these familiar particles, must have co-existed.
Why are the shy relatives not evident today? For example, one of the lines of research that will keep physicists busy for the coming few years is why matter exists but antimatter does not.
Physicists are simply people who dare to ask "Why?" questions. The answer to a single such question generates numerous deeper "Why?" questions. Audacious questions can require audacious experimental efforts like the Large Hadron Collider.
We are good at asking questions and the collider is only the latest and most spectacular incarnation of our desire to understand our beginnings. It is neither a luxury nor a high-priced toy in the 21st century.
Developing new technology is a benefit but satisfying our intense desire for understanding is one of the true necessities if we are to maintain our human dignity.
* Dr David Krofcheck is a senior lecturer at the department of physics, University of Auckland.
