The Large Hadron Collider - commonly known as the LHC - is possibly the biggest and most important experiment in the past decades. Thousand of scientists from around the world have gathered at CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research to launch the trial which, if it all goes well, will answer the age-old question “how did we get here?”.

In other words, the test is trying to recreate the Big Bang and the initial matter from which parts of the Universe were created.

The experiment had to be shut down nine days after its launch, on September 10th. Apparently, the 17-mile long tunnel in which the experiment was being conducted showed signs of a helium leak. After the initial suspicions were confirmed, the whole experiment was postponed until next year. To ensure a better deployment of the events, information must be reached quickly and easily by all the members of the immense team, irrespective of the location of the participants.

CERN, a veteran of the Internet as it was here that the World Wide Web was created, has recently revealed the world’s biggest computer network. It allows the over 7,000 scientists involved in the LHC project to have access, in real time, to the same information. The system also allows them to share and exchange data, analysis, test results, opinion and novel ideas. These scientists come from 33 different countries, and they can all gain the same fast and secure access to the gargantuan computing grid.

Fast access to this type of crucial information also benefits the public, as other domains can use that data for their own experiments, tests, projects and innovations. Thus, the network is not only widely helpful for CERN and LHC, but also for the rest of the scientific world.

Image Credit: www.cern.ch
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