LHC(onT)

Wait for it

Interlude

Verse 1

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest machine ever built.

It's essentially two rings 27 kilometres in diameter

Stacked on top of each other.

Verse 2

Particles are accelerated in opposite directions

In either ring to nearly the speed of light,

Then they're collided at four different points.

Verse 3

This releases a huge amount of energy,

Which creates new particles.

Scientists use this to study the fundamental building blocks

Of the universe,

And the laws that govern them.

Verse 4

It was used to discover the Higgs Boson in 2012,

And its ongoing research

May help us understand dark matter and dark energy.

Verse 5

And if your grill is broken,

You can use the LHC

To make yourself a cheese toasty.

Interlude

Interlude

Verse 6

First you need a proton beam at the right energy,

About 6.5 TeV per beam will do.

Fire it into the ring and let it circle,

Guide it with the magnets, keep it true.

Verse 7

The superconducting magnets are cooled with liquid helium

Down to 1.9 Kelvin, colder than deep space.

When they quench, the whole thing shuts down,

So please don't touch the buttons in this place.

Verse 8

Ride the beam down the beamline to the toasting cavern,

Where a detector the size of a cathedral waits.

You'll want the bread on the collision axis,

Tilted forty-five degrees to catch the strays.

Verse 9

The protons slam, the energy blooms,

A spray of muons, gluons, quarks,

And somewhere in that shower of light

A slice of cheddar starts to spark.

Post-Chorus

(Sizzle, sizzle)

(Sizzle, sizzle)

(Toast, toast)

(Toast, toast)

Verse 10

Timing is everything, don't you blink,

The window's a picosecond wide.

Too slow and you get cold bread,

Too fast and you get a hole in the side.

Verse 11

The butter melts in the hadronic heat,

The cheese goes golden, the crust goes brown,

And the vacuum chamber smells like Sunday morning

Twenty-seven kilometres underground.

Interlude

Bridge

Somewhere a physicist looks up from her screen,

Sniffs the air, and says, "Is someone cooking?"

The shift supervisor shrugs and files a report:

"Anomalous aroma near the toasting beam."

Interlude

Verse 12

They said it was for dark matter,

For the secrets of the void,

But the collider keeps on humming

And the toasty comes out warm.

Verse 13

So when your grill gives up the ghost,

And your kitchen's gone all cold,

Remember there's a tunnel in Geneva

Where the universe gets told.

Post-Chorus

(Warm, warm)

(Warm, warm)

(Golden, golden)

(Golden, golden)

Outro

One more collision

(One more)

One more toasty

(One more)

Set the beam

(Set the beam)

Let it run

(Let it run)

Cheese toasty

(Cheese

Outro

Encore

Toast