## The Megawatt Microscope

To discover the Higgs Boson, humanity had to build a 27-kilometer ring under Switzerland and France. To see the smallest particles in the universe, you need the largest, most energy-dense machine on Earth.

### FAQ

**Q: Why does the Large Hadron Collider use the same amount of electricity as a small city?**
A: Bending Light. Protons do not want to turn corners. When they are traveling at 99.9999% the speed of light, their momentum is staggering. To force them to travel in a circle within the 27km pipe, CERN must use 1,232 massive superconducting dipole magnets to create magnetic fields 100,000 times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. To maintain superconductivity (0 electrical resistance), those magnets must be chilled to 1.9 Kelvin (-271°C) using liquid helium. The gargantuan cryogenic refrigeration plants required to maintain that temperature over 27 kilometers drain tens of Megawatts of power constantly from the French electrical grid.