Particle accelerators! Every time one appears in fiction, you can be sure a dimensional rift or some kind of otherworldly monster is soon to follow. And it’s easy to see why!
Over at places like CERN and Fermilab, scientists are busy colliding protons and other particles together to recreate the conditions of our early universe. This requires an ever-increasing amount of energy and some extremely complex physics, which, you know, sometimes puts people on edge. This has led to numerous hypotheses about the safety of these accelerators, not to mention more than a few rumors. Like that time in 2015 when someone claimed a portal had opened up in the sky, or when a woman desperately attempted to shut down the Large Hadron Collider before it could eat the universe or something.
Let’s take a quick look at the true history of the Large Hadron Collider, and then we’ll check out some of the more prominent examples of particle accelerators (including the LHC!) in fiction.
A Quick History of the Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland opened in 2008, with the first beam circulated on September 10 of that year. The goal of any collider is to accelerate particles at incredible speeds, smashing them together and detecting the results of those collisions.
What scientists hope to find by doing so are new particles or reactions, new information on how the universe works at a fundamental level.
The first true collisions happened in 2010. When the LHC first began operation, it reached a combined energy level of 7 teraelectronvolts, or TeV. It’s been upgraded over the years, most recently reaching 13 TeV, reportedly the “present world record.”
The greatest achievement of the LHC so far is undoubtedly the discovery of the Higgs Boson. As CERN themselves reported, “On 4 July 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced they had each observed a new particle in the mass region around 125 GeV.”
The particle was “consistent with the Higgs boson,” and in 2013 François Englert and Peter Higgs received the Nobel prize in physics for the discovery. In 2011, Fermilab posted a good overview of the nature of the Higgs Boson and Higgs field.
Other CERN Oddities
Particle Accelerators In SciFi: Your Gateway to Having A Bad Time (Usually)
In the realm of science fiction, particle accelerators are the domain of gateways to other worlds, or the source of strange elements or even superpowers. Sometimes, they trigger bizarre realty-bending phenomena.
The Cloverfield Paradox (2018): In 2028, an international crew aboard the Cloverfield space station tests the Shepard particle accelerator to solve Earth’s energy crisis. Something goes wrong, causing the Earth to seemingly vanish, and a whole lot of weird things begin to happen. This film was originally titled God Particle, and had no connection to Cloverfield. It’s an odd one, but has a little fun with some of the CERN rumors shared above.
Angels & Demons (2009): Part of the DaVinci Code series following ???? by Dan Brown, the story focuses on antimatter created at the Large Hadron Collider, which is stolen in an attempt to use it as a weapon. Parts of the film were actually shot on-site at CERN.
12:01 (1993): A made-for-TV movie based on the scifi short story by Richard Lupoff, “12:01 P.M.” In it, a man becomes trapped in a time loop due to a malfunction during unauthorized particle accelerator experiments.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003): In one scene, the T-X (played by Kristanna Loken) gets trapped by the Cyclotron particle accelerator’s magnetic field.
Iron Man 2 (2010): Tony Stark throws together a particle accelerator in his lab to make a new element for his arc reactor.
The Mist (2007): While never explicitly stated, both 1980’s novella by Stephen King and the film of the same name involve strange experiments at the Arrowhead Project, leading to an otherworldly mist and bizarre creatures that begin pouring into our reality. Well, I think it’s pretty obvious what went down over there.
Timescape by Gregory Benford (1980): Scientists in the future use a particle accelerator to send messages back in time via tachyons in order to avert an ecological disaster.
Half-Life (1998): Set at the fictional Black Mesa Research Facility, scientist Gordon Freeman triggers a “resonance cascade” during an experiment with a Xen crystal and the Anti-Mass Spectrometer, opening a portal to an alien dimension. If you want a breakdown of how that probably worked (because of course there is one), check over here.
Xenoblade Chronicles Series (2010+, huge spoiler): A particle accelerator orbiting Earth plays a large role in these stories, as it’s revealed that an accelerator orbiting Earth is responsible for creating the characters’ entire world in a parallel reality.
The Flash (2014): A particle accelerator built by Harrison Wells at S.T.A.R. Labs inadvertently releases energy throughout the city, leading to the creation of superpowered humans like Barry Allen, aka The Flash.
FlashForward by Robert J. Sawyer (1999): An experiment at the LHC causes a global blackout, during which everyone on Earth experiences visions of their future. This novel was also turned into a short-lived TV series.
Terra Nova (2011): In this show about a family who time travels 85 million years into the past to flee an overpopulated and pollution-ridden present, the means of time travel is discovered at Fermilab, the particle accelerator located in Illinois.
The LHC itself also plays a similar role in the John Titor urban legend, with the poster claiming that time travel would be discovered at CERN in the early 00s, according to one of his old quotes. The general public would then be “informed about time travel around 2034.”
“The breakthrough that will allow for this technology will occur within a year or so when CERN brings their larger facility online.”
John Titor, January 31, 2001
But that’s just a story too, right? Right?!
Real “Portals” to New Physics
Whether in scifi or here in the real world, particle physics is on a steady march forward, with new accelerators on the horizon that will make the Large Hadron Collider look small by comparison.
In January 2019, CERN officials revealed their potential plan for a 62 mile circular collider. The project, dubbed the Future Circular Collider, would cost around $10 billion. Compared to the LHC, it would be absolutely gigantic.
Other particle accelerators are also in the planning stages, though it’s unclear whether or not any will ever see the light of day. China is looking to create a 20-mile-diameter collider, while Japan has also been in talks to host the International Linear Collider.
The LHC itself is currently undergoing upgrades that will increase its luminosity “by a factor of 10.” The collider was shut down in 2018 for major upgrades, what the folks at CERN referred to as Long Shutdown 2. Previously, the LHC had been shut down and upgraded from 2013 to 2015, so this wasn’t the first time the 17-mile-long collider had gone into hibernation.
In 2025, the high-luminosity LHC test began “taking shape,” according to news direct from CERN. As the LHC is upgraded and more powerful accelerators are built, what new mysteries of the universe will we uncover?
