Nine nations agree to build particle accelerator in Germany

Oct 4, 2010, 16:21 GMT

Wiesbaden, Germany - Nine nations agreed Monday in Germany to build a particle accelerator that will peer inside the atom and reveal what happened a thousandth of a second after the Big Bang.

The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) will be a 1.1-kilometre-long ring-formed racetrack for nuclear particles.

Scientists described it as a 'little brother' to the 27-kilometre Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland, which works particles up to even higher speeds. Some non-physicist critics have claimed the LHC might create dangerous 'black holes' on earth.

FAIR, costing 1 billion euros (1.4 billion dollars) became a binding project with nine nations signing a treaty in the German city of Wiesbaden. Germany, France, India, Poland, Romania and Russia are foundation partners.

Excavators will not begin laying the ring in the earth till next year. Germany is paying three quarters of the cost, with Russia the second-biggest partner. The Russians are supplying many of the magnets needed in the machine, spokesman Ingo Peter said.

The difference to LHC was that FAIR would work with bigger particles, Peter said. It would reveal other types of matter such as anti-matter or the dark matter thought to exist invisibly in the universe. Finland, Sweden and Slovenia are also partners.

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