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Transcript

Question: Will the Large Hadron Collider be able to recreate the moments after the birth of the universe?

Michio Kaku: With our satellites today, we can pick up radiation actually from the Big Bang itself, a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. Radiation was released throughout the universe that is now in the microwave range. Believe it or not, when you turn on the TV and you pick up static, when you turn on the radio and you pick up static, some of that static comes from creation itself. You can actually listen to some degree to the actual explosion that created the universe.

However, this explosion dates from a few hundred thousand years after the incident of creation. We're not satisfied. We physicists want to go to the instant of the Big Bang itself, and that's what the Hadron Collider will do. It'll recreate conditions not seen since perhaps a trillionth of a second after creation itself. And we hope the Large Hadron Collider will unlock some of the deepest secrets of space and time, matter and energy.

More from the Big Idea for Wednesday, March 17 2010