The researchers of the world's largest particle accelerator in Switzerland proposed the construction of a new, much larger super collider. Its purpose would be to discover new particles, which would be revolutionary in physics, and would complete the knowledge about the cosmos and how it works.
If its construction is approved, the super collider will be three times the size of the current giant machine.
The new device would cost more than 19 billion euros, which caused a debate among scientists, and one of the critics called this spending "reckless".
That money, which is only the initial capital for the construction, would be given by the members of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), including Great Britain, and some experts wonder if it is economically profitable to invest in this project.
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The biggest achievement of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was the discovery of a new particle - the Higgs boson in 2012.
Its main goal to find the two holy grails of physics, dark matter and dark energy, has turned out, and some researchers believe there are cheaper options.
The name of the new device is the Future Circular Collider (FCC).
If the project is approved, it will be a "beautiful machine," Fabiola Gianotti, CERN's executive director, told the BBC.
"It is a tool that will help humanity to answer many questions in fundamental physics, as well as to complete our knowledge of the universe.
"In order to succeed in this, we need a powerful instrument," he adds.
CERN is on the border of Switzerland with France, near Geneva.
The LHC contains a circular tunnel with a diameter of 27 kilometers.
It accelerates the interior of atoms (hadrons) clockwise, but also counter-clockwise to speeds close to the speed of light.
At certain points it smashes them together, harder than any other atom smasher in the world can.
The smaller, subatomic particles left over from the collision help scientists determine the composition of atoms and how they interact.
Working on a revolutionary discovery
It was considered revolutionary when the Higgs boson particle was discovered by a super collider more than 10 years ago.
The existence of the building block, which gives all other particles in the universe their shape, was predicted in 1964 by the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs.
But the block was only discovered in 2012 by the LHC.
It was the last piece of the puzzle of the current theory of subatomic physics, called the Standard Model.
It is proposed that the new FCC be built in two stages.
The first will start operating in the mid-2040s and will collide electrons together.
The researchers hope that the increased energy will produce a large number of Higgs particles that would be analyzed in detail.
The second phase, planned for the 2070s, requires stronger and more advanced magnets, which have not yet been discovered.
Instead of electrons, in the search for new particles, heavier protons will be used.
The FCC will be almost three times the size of the LHC, 91 kilometers in diameter, twice as deep.
It must be deeper in order to prevent a stronger emission of energies arriving from the surface.
Why do we need a larger hadron collider?
Because the LHC, which cost a little less than five billion euros and started operating in 2008, has not yet found particles that would help to understand 95 percent of the cosmos.
Scientists are still searching for the two biggest, so far, unknown forces.
It is dark energy that acts against gravity and separates objects such as galaxies in the universe.
The second is dark matter, which cannot be observed, but whose presence is felt through gravity.
"We are missing something important," believes Gianotti.
She argues that the FCC is necessary to find these dark particles to complete the theory of how the universe works.
Two decades ago, CERN researchers believed that the LHS would find these mysterious particles.
But that didn't happen.
Critics, such as Sabine Hosenfelder of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Science, point out that there is no guarantee that the new collider will succeed.
"Particle physics is a big field, well-funded for historical reasons, that grew out of nuclear physics and needs to be shrunk down to a reasonable size, maybe a tenth," she says.
David King, a former science adviser to the British government, told the BBC that funding this new project was "reckless".
"The world is facing an extraordinary climate situation.
"Wouldn't it be wiser to channel those funds into creating a manageable future?" he added.
Physicists themselves are divided on the issue of the new collider.
Aidan Robson of the University of Glasgow told the BBC that he thought building a linear one would be cheaper.
"There are three advantages. A straight line machine could be done step by step.
"The costs would be different - the initial phase would cost less and the tunnel is shorter, so everything could be done faster," he explains.
The FCC is a secondary option for CERN.
We have to wait for what the members of the organization say, which should also pay for the new machine.
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