How does making protons collide with each other (in the LHC) (re)creates the conditions that were present after the Big Bang?
In: Physics
When any object is moving with some velocity, it has kinetic energy. The goal of a particle accelerator is to bring particles up to absurdly high kinetic energies so that when they collide, that energy can be converted into a different form of energy, mass! Particle can pop into existence by putting a ton of energy into small amounts of space and usually decay into a shower of smaller particles in what are known as jets.
When they talk about recreating quark gluon plasma or early universe conditions, they mean that the resulting after products have a temperature similar to that of the early universe. The QGP is a material so hot that the quarks cannot bind together to make any of the composite particles that feel the strong nuclear force. Which is saying something since that force is so.. strong.
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