cern

[ronniemonda8]

How does it work?

[fo3nix]

http://science.howstuffworks.com/atom-smasher2.htm

[Calvesy]

It works a bit like your telly in how voltages and magnets accelerate and deflect charged particles. On your telly there is a phosphorescent screen with coloured dots (pixels) that act as a detector for how strong the beam is at that point.

Although the electrons in your telly are accelerated to 90% or more of the speed of light, if you put any more energy into them it turns into mass rather than speed. At least as we see it relative to our 'stationary' frame of reference.
What they like doing at CERN is to send protons around the ring one way, antiprotons around the other way and collide them in a detector to analyse conditions that have not been around since a few seconds after the Big Bang. If we can find out what causes mass or if we can unify gravity with electro-magnetism it will be the biggest discovery since fire.