The Large Hadron Collider built by the European Organization for Nuclear research (CERN) is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex. The machine intends to collide opposing beams of protons charged with nearly 7 TeV of energy. The main purpose for which the LHC was built is to explore the validity and limitation of the Standard Model (the current theoretical picture for particle physics).

The scientists all over the world threw the first beam of protons on Wednesday, in trying to understand the makeup of the universe. The LHC was built in 2003 and it cost $3.8 billion. The machine offers the researchers the chance to smash the components of the atoms to see how they are made.

Paola Catapano, a spokeswoman for the host European Organization for Nuclear Research said that "the beam is the size of a human hair." The first protons were fired into the collider, which lies underneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, at 9:32 a.m.

The scientists throw the protons around the tunnel in stages, at several miles at a time. When the beam is tested successfully in a clockwise direction, the researchers send it counterclockwise until the two beams will be fired in opposite directions. The goal is to smash the two beams and see how they are made.

9,000 physicists all over the world will conduct the experiment near Geneva, but millions of people fear that the collisions of protons could create a black hole which could swollen the earth. They say that the collisions can produce micro black holes, which are subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is very strong and they can suck in planets and other stars.

Still, a chief spokesman for CERN, James Gillies, said that this is nonsense. He added that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control and they could damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel.