The startup of the LHC is huge, but is there still more to come?

The recent start up of the LHC has raised curiosity among many spectators. What will it find? Will we find the "God particle"? Will its experimental collisions create tiny black holes that will devour the Earth? All of these questions will hopefully be answered in the next few years or even months. Hopefully we won't find out that tiny black holes have destroyed the Earth. However, I'm not sure how we would even know that this is even going on. You would think it would be pretty quick. Even if this did happen, no one would know nor care. Getting back to the point, there is a lot of sceptecism and excitement shrouding this project. This excitement should last for some time, but it won't be the final chapter in man's quest for unveiling the secrets of our existence. According the the Times Online there is already talk of a bigger and better machine that will take the work of the LHC one step further.

The ILC (or International Linear Collider) is built on the same concept as the LHC as it hurls billions of particles at each other at tremendous speeds and analying the resulting collisions. The primary difference between the two projects is that instead of accellorating the particles in a series of circular tunnels, the ILC will simply fire two sets of particles at each other in a straight line from two opposite ends, 31 miles appart. The biggest advantage of this concept is that when you accellorate particles in a circular tube, you lose energy as the particles release bursts of x-rays. By firing two sets of particles at each other in a straight line, the particles don't have to contend with the awesome force of having to bend through tubes at near light speeds.

Don't get your hopes up anytime soon because the final design of this project isn't expected to be complete until 2012. When it does begin to operate in the next couple of decades, it will hopefully shed some more light on the mysterious substance known as dark matter. Buckle your seatbelts. You will be in for one wild science ride during the next half century or so.