Europe is planning to build a supercollider to explore the deepest mysteries of matter. The collider, called the Future Ring Collider (FCC), will build a 91-kilometer-long circular tunnel beneath the border between France and Switzerland to accelerate and collide with subatomic particles. One of the goals of this project is to study in more detail the Higgs boson, a mysterious particle capable of imparting mass to other particles, also known as the "God particle". The Higgs boson was discovered in 2012 by the existing Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27-kilometer collider in orbit just outside Geneva, Switzerland, and currently the world's largest particle accelerator. However, the energy of the LHC is not enough to reveal the full nature of the Higgs boson, and no other expected new physical phenomena, such as dark matter or supersymmetric particles, have been discovered. As a result, scientists hope to find new physical breakthroughs by building more powerful colliders.
CERN, the international organization responsible for the LHC and FCC, has completed the interim report of the feasibility study for the FCC, but it has not yet made it public. It was revealed that the construction of the FCC will be carried out in two phases. The first phase is to begin around 2033 with the excavation of a 100-kilometer tunnel at a depth of 200 meters underground, in which a positron collider will be installed for mass generation and measurement of the Higgs boson. The second stage is to replace the positron and negative electron collider with the proton-proton collider later in the century, which will have a collision energy of 100 trillion electron volts, six times that of the LHC and the highest energy level in human history.
The construction of the FCC will be a huge engineering and scientific challenge, as well as a huge amount of funding. It is estimated that the total cost of the FCC will reach $17 billion, most of which will be covered by CERN's existing budget, but will also require financial support from CERN's member countries and other countries. CERN's member states include most of the European Union, as well as non-EU countries such as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, etc. CERN also has a number of associate member countries, such as the United States, Japan, China, India, etc., which are also involved in the research and operation of the LHC. Fabiola Gianotti, CERN's director-general, said that the construction of the FCC requires global cooperation and sharing, but no specific funding allocation plan has been given.
The construction of the FCC also faces some controversy and questioning. Some scientists believe that the cost of FCC is too high and the returns are unclear, especially in the absence of clear theoretical guidance and **, just blindly pursuing higher energies. They argue that the money should be spent on other more pressing and meaningful areas of science, such as climate change, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, etc. Other scientists believe that the FCC is a necessary means to explore the frontiers of physics, and that it may lead to unexpected discoveries and innovations, as well as the development of related technologies and talents. They believe that FCC is the embodiment of human curiosity and exploration of nature, and is an important driving force for scientific progress. FCC's construction plan is subject to further evaluation and approval by CERN, as well as consultation and coordination with countries** and agencies. The FCC's full study is expected to be published next year, while a final decision will be made by 2028. If all goes well, the FCC will be operational by mid-century, opening the door to a new physical world for humanity. Europe will spend 17 billion to build a super collider