Scientists all set to find out how the universe works

MEGA EXPERIMENT: Scientists will try to understand the secrets of the universe at CERN.

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London: Scientists in Europe are making the final preparations for an experiment on Wednesday that could find out how our world began.

It is the biggest scientific experiment ever with 14 years and $10 billion in the making.

The goal is to try to understand the secrets of the universe by recreating the moments just after Big Bang.

"We have to understand the atoms we are made of but we have to understand the stars too because every atom we are made of was fused from atom hydrogen in a star which exploded before the sun formed. We are literally the ashes of long dead stars," a scientist explains about the experiment.

The experiment will take place in a a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - affectionately called the Big Bang machine at the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN) near Geneva.

The plan: beam particles around 27 kilometers (17 miles) of underground track at nearly the speed of light to smash them together and recreate conditions less than a microsecond after the Big Bang.

Massive detectors will try and track down sub-atomic particles released from the collision. The most highly anticipated: The Higgs Boson also known as "The God Particle" - Theorised but not yet proven to exist.

Scientists believe it gives matter its mass - allowing for the formation of stars, planets and whole galaxies.

Researches also hope to find evidence of new particles, new dimensions and possibly the elusive "Dark Energy" and "Dark Matter" that scientists believe make up most of the Universe.

There are detractors too. Log on to YouTube and you get this: some fear the experiment will create a black hole that will swallow the earth. But CERN says this will not happen.

Scientists say a microscopic black hole is possible but it would be too small and too unstable - winking out of existence in a matter of seconds.

Critics also question what they see astronomical billions of dollars in cost. but for many physicists there is no question.

"You are cultural deprived if you can't appreciate the amazing chain of events and the mysterious beginning 13 -14 billion years ago, through atoms, stars, galaxies, planets and biospheres," another scientist says.

Understanding how the universe works, these scientists believe, is worth the cost and the risk.