Cern

:00:07. > :00:17.This week, smashing particles. A spinning house. And a trip to the

:00:18. > :00:44.birth of the universe. Now we're talking!

:00:45. > :00:57.How did it all began? What happened at the big bang? What is the

:00:58. > :01:06.universe is made of? These are the questions that I have come here to

:01:07. > :01:14.find out. Please scan your eye. Thank you. Your identity has been

:01:15. > :01:18.verified. Just outside Geneva, straddling France and Switzerland,

:01:19. > :01:23.is the European Organisation for nuclear research, Cern. A massive

:01:24. > :01:26.coming together of scientists who are looking for the fundamental

:01:27. > :01:33.building blocks of the universe. I think we have it. You agree? Their

:01:34. > :01:38.most high-profile discovery in 2013 was evidence of the Higgs boson. The

:01:39. > :01:43.particle that gives everything mass, and confirmation that

:01:44. > :01:51.science's standard model of the universe is correct. And this is how

:01:52. > :01:54.they did it. Under the ground, a series of four particle accelerators

:01:55. > :01:59.gradually bring beams of particles up too close to the speed of light.

:02:00. > :02:05.Then they are smashed together, and the particles are smashed apart. The

:02:06. > :02:09.largest of these accelerators is the one that has made all the headlines

:02:10. > :02:15.recently. It creates temperatures of trillions of degrees, and conditions

:02:16. > :02:25.similar to those at the birth of the universe. Now, it's time to head

:02:26. > :02:34.underground. I have a very small head. And meet the beast itself. 100

:02:35. > :02:40.or so metres below the surface, a 27 kilometre long loop running under

:02:41. > :02:46.the French Swiss border. Let's see what we've got. This is the largest

:02:47. > :02:55.machine in the world. The Large Hadron Collider. This is it, the LHC

:02:56. > :03:02.tunnel. My guide is the head of the beams instrumentation group, Roger

:03:03. > :03:11.Jones, who I leave in no doubt at all about how happy he has made this

:03:12. > :03:25.little peak. -- geek. I need a moment. Wow.

:03:26. > :03:32.I don't know what I was expecting, but to be honest this looks almost

:03:33. > :03:38.to science fiction to be real. This enormous collection of components,

:03:39. > :03:44.donated by so many countries, is a real reminder that this is a truly

:03:45. > :03:47.international collaboration. Science, here at least, knows no

:03:48. > :04:00.borders. What you see here are what we call

:04:01. > :04:04.the focusing magnets. So it is a bit like your lens in a camera. So when

:04:05. > :04:09.you say focusing the particles down you mean aligning them into a really

:04:10. > :04:12.narrow beam. You can imagine it to be like you with the sunlight and a

:04:13. > :04:16.magnifying glass burning a bit of paper. It is exactly the same

:04:17. > :04:19.thing. They focus, all the particles come down here to a very tight spot

:04:20. > :04:22.just beyond the wall and that is where the collisions occur. And from

:04:23. > :04:26.these collisions we then look up to see where we can find these new

:04:27. > :04:31.particles that we are talking about. And getting these two extremely fine

:04:32. > :04:36.beams to collide is no mean feat. And it is Roger and his team who

:04:37. > :04:40.make that happen. You are in effect the sniper, to get these beams

:04:41. > :04:44.exactly in line. What we build measures the position, we then

:04:45. > :04:48.feedback to make the current and we slightly adjust the position. So

:04:49. > :04:52.without you these beams properly would miss each other. As we turn

:04:53. > :04:57.and head back to the left, it is worth remembering that although the

:04:58. > :05:00.beams are tiny, the energies involved down here are incredibly

:05:01. > :05:06.high. So high that humans are usually banned from this tunnel.

:05:07. > :05:11.Really lucky to be allowed down here. The only reason we are is

:05:12. > :05:14.because the LHC is switched off for maintenance. If this was running it

:05:15. > :05:18.would be far too dangerous Ross to be down here. In fact, we have all

:05:19. > :05:22.been given these little tokens. And if any of are detected either

:05:23. > :05:30.sensors down here, you can't switch the LHC on. OK. Time to leave

:05:31. > :05:38.Switzerland just for a few minutes. Now, not all of us need as much

:05:39. > :05:42.power as Cern, but in the future we are all going to need more power.

:05:43. > :05:46.The Sun is one solution but it is still quite expensive to first

:05:47. > :05:51.collect solar energy and then store it. Ben Simons visits physicists

:05:52. > :06:02.research Inc in Germany who want a max out what the sun can do for us.

:06:03. > :06:05.-- want to max out. It is free energy, at the technology needed to

:06:06. > :06:10.capture it is still expensive. So when it comes to heating or lighting

:06:11. > :06:11.your homes, some believe the answer revolves around the planet's

:06:12. > :06:23.movement. It is more efficient to move this

:06:24. > :06:31.house to track the sun across the sky than it would be to heat and

:06:32. > :06:36.light it. This is such a weird sensation. Because it's quite

:06:37. > :06:42.steady, it just looks like everything outside is slowly going

:06:43. > :06:50.past. It is the strangest feeling. It's almost like we are not moving,

:06:51. > :06:53.but they are. Researchers are carefully measuring the environment

:06:54. > :06:59.inside and outside the house, to see what prompts these two desk workers

:07:00. > :07:04.to open windows, turn on fans or heaters, or adjust the blinds, all

:07:05. > :07:10.of which they can do remotely from their computers. If our homes are to

:07:11. > :07:16.track the sun but we end up turning on the air con, for example, we are

:07:17. > :07:20.unlikely to see energy savings. Sofia and Lewis have been willing

:07:21. > :07:26.guinea pigs for this experiment for seven months now, with the initial

:07:27. > :07:29.results due later this year. For the initial experiments, we are

:07:30. > :07:33.manipulating how the sun is affecting people. In winter you

:07:34. > :07:36.could try to face the sun as much as possible. The game the sort of

:07:37. > :07:44.radiation and the heat through there. But in some time we maybe

:07:45. > :07:48.don't want to have it as warm, and we don't want to have sunshine, so

:07:49. > :07:53.we you will turn your back and keep it cool inside. Now, for most of us

:07:54. > :07:56.spinning our existing home isn't really an option. So back to those

:07:57. > :08:00.solar panels at Europe's largest research solar park where they are

:08:01. > :08:05.finding out how to make it cheaper and better suited to our homes. If

:08:06. > :08:14.you get energy from the grid, you pay around 29 euros, producing your

:08:15. > :08:19.own energy might end up around nine or ten euro cents so the difference

:08:20. > :08:24.between these 29 and nine is available for storage. Available for

:08:25. > :08:27.storage means that 20 cents per kilowatt power saving is at the

:08:28. > :08:34.moment almost completely spent on buying the hardware in the first

:08:35. > :08:43.place. And as most batteries only achieve 4000 to 5000 cycles, they

:08:44. > :08:48.are looking to match better battery tech with clever control systems, to

:08:49. > :08:52.deliver the cost saving solar power has been promising for decades. One

:08:53. > :08:58.idea is to reduce the need to store solar energy. Most solar farms, all

:08:59. > :09:01.the panels would face the same way, usually south in the northern

:09:02. > :09:05.hemisphere, to get the most amount of electricity. Here they are

:09:06. > :09:09.testing outpointing the panels in different directions in order to get

:09:10. > :09:14.a more even delivery of electricity across the course of the day. So

:09:15. > :09:17.rather than make as much energy as possible, the idea now is that we

:09:18. > :09:24.harvest it at the same time we use it, and reduce the need for those

:09:25. > :09:29.expensive batteries. The panels themselves are starting to deliver

:09:30. > :09:33.about 20% efficiency. So it is now starting to be possible to design

:09:34. > :09:40.power systems even in northern Europe that pay for themselves in

:09:41. > :09:43.ten years. Looking to the future, architects are imagining how

:09:44. > :09:51.skyscrapers could spin, while harvesting solar, and in this case

:09:52. > :09:57.wind power. But this dynamic power, or anything similar that could power

:09:58. > :10:00.itself, has yet to be built. And perhaps that is because of a small

:10:01. > :10:14.problem I have found with buildings that move. Where is the car? Hello,

:10:15. > :10:20.and welcome to the week in Tech. It was the week that Apple and the FBI

:10:21. > :10:24.went head-to-head over unregulated phones. Apple boss Tim Cook

:10:25. > :10:28.announced that the company will fight a court order which will help

:10:29. > :10:35.the FBI access data on the phone, belonging to San Bernardino gunmen

:10:36. > :10:39.Syed Farook. They say the US government is asking it to hack its

:10:40. > :10:42.own users while the FBI says the phone contains crucial information.

:10:43. > :10:46.It was also the week that Russia showed off some space age robots.

:10:47. > :10:57.The world's cheapest smartphone was revealed in India for a mere ?2.50.

:10:58. > :11:02.And as you know, the one thing we have all been crying out for is self

:11:03. > :11:08.parking chairs. And if you wondered what Darpa, the Pentagon's defence

:11:09. > :11:11.research division, was up to recently, well this week they showed

:11:12. > :11:17.off their incredible if asked, fully autonomous quad copter drone. It is

:11:18. > :11:22.able to reach speeds of 45 mph. And finally if you want a peek at the

:11:23. > :11:26.future, well, here it is. Researchers at Queens University,

:11:27. > :11:29.Canada, have shown off a truly bendable, flexible smartphone. The

:11:30. > :11:33.nimble mobile is able to measure how much pressure is being put on the

:11:34. > :11:41.Flex is green, allowing you to control the cursor or plate angry

:11:42. > :11:49.birds like never before. -- play Angry Birds. Having been down to the

:11:50. > :11:52.tunnel containing the Large Hadron Collider itself, it's time to come

:11:53. > :11:57.up top and meet the people who actually operate it. The physicists

:11:58. > :12:04.conducting the experiments rely on engineers like Julia in the Cern

:12:05. > :12:08.control room, to make sure the proton beams are connected correctly

:12:09. > :12:12.and behave himself during the process. Can you describe the kind

:12:13. > :12:17.of satisfaction that your job gives you? You are not dreaming up the

:12:18. > :12:22.experiments or sifting through the results, you are operating this

:12:23. > :12:27.machine. Our job is to give the experiments could conditions, good

:12:28. > :12:31.collisions. High tech pleasure, call it, when there is a problem

:12:32. > :12:35.understanding what the causes. , just point out, Julia works only

:12:36. > :12:39.over ball. There are some people who say this could be a big waste of

:12:40. > :12:46.money. What is the point of looking at the origins of the universe? When

:12:47. > :12:50.there are more important things in the world to spend the money on.

:12:51. > :12:54.What would you say? It is a lot of money but there are other things on

:12:55. > :13:02.which more money is spent. It is worth it so much more, this one

:13:03. > :13:06.thing is can parable. What we're doing here is the advancement of the

:13:07. > :13:14.knowledge that mankind has on nature, why we are building this and

:13:15. > :13:19.learning more technology that can be used elsewhere. Really useful and

:13:20. > :13:23.easy to understand is accelerators for cancer therapy. There is a whole

:13:24. > :13:28.world that and it is the technology that is produced in accelerators

:13:29. > :13:33.that is used to kill people. -- your people. All these lights are

:13:34. > :13:38.concerning regions of the machine that we can access. Each quarter of

:13:39. > :13:42.the control room runs a different part of the accelerator process. And

:13:43. > :13:46.since the LHC was offline for maintenance and things were suitably

:13:47. > :13:49.quiet, I was able to grab some time with Paul, director of teams. Which

:13:50. > :13:56.is officially the coolest job title in the world. Each This island is

:13:57. > :14:00.the one that looks after all the basic infrastructure of Cern. For

:14:01. > :14:03.example, the electrical distribution system, the cooling systems, the

:14:04. > :14:08.cryogenic systems. You must need a hell of a lot of electricity! We do

:14:09. > :14:12.need quite a bit, yes. When the whole complex is running flat-out,

:14:13. > :14:18.we're drawing roughly 200 megawatts. Does anyone else notice when you go

:14:19. > :14:21.live? Do the surrounding towns' lights flicker? No, because we

:14:22. > :14:26.continue sucking and pushing energy backwards and forwards between us

:14:27. > :14:34.and the outside world. If we didn't have, um, what we call compsators,

:14:35. > :14:37.then everybody's lights would follow the 1.2-second pulse of Cern in the

:14:38. > :14:41.Geneva area and we would not be very popular. So instead, we have a

:14:42. > :14:48.mechanism which damps this out, which means that the outside world

:14:49. > :14:51.does not see this heartbeat of Cern. Can I ask about the bottles of

:14:52. > :14:58.champagne? Yeah. There are quite a lot up there. I'm guessing they are

:14:59. > :15:01.to do with discoveries? Discoveries or major milestones for us in the

:15:02. > :15:09.development of the machine. Somebody normally turns up with a bottle of

:15:10. > :15:17.champagne to celebrate it. It's the great Cern champagne tour, for a

:15:18. > :15:26.smashing good time! Congratulations on our very first fant obarn. Now

:15:27. > :15:33.never forget your first phantobarn. That's a good year, that, 10-to-the

:15:34. > :15:38.33. Always steer a way from clear bottles in your dad f shed. It says

:15:39. > :15:40.mineral water. That is so not mineral water. No naked flames,

:15:41. > :15:45.ladies and gentlemen. No naked flames. The hick single malt. Do the

:15:46. > :15:50.physicists here drink well, or do they have one glass of wine and

:15:51. > :15:56.they're anyone's? Oh, we can manage to, ah, to put it away when it's

:15:57. > :15:58.appropriate. We don't drink and drive the machine, as it were.

:15:59. > :16:00.LAUGHS High-five. You've done that one

:16:01. > :16:13.before! Well, it may not be scientifically

:16:14. > :16:18.accurate, but they do say that money makes the world go 'round, and these

:16:19. > :16:26.days, technology helps give it a little extra spin. And so today,

:16:27. > :16:31.I've joined the suited financiers at the Finovate conference in the city

:16:32. > :16:38.of London, where the latest apps to heped us spend our money are being

:16:39. > :16:41.shown off. If it's simple control of your cards you're after, VyPera is

:16:42. > :16:45.an app that aims to help. It gives options like being able to tell it

:16:46. > :16:50.when you're travelling so, your reg strd cards will expect you to be

:16:51. > :16:55.abroad, rather than causing security alerts each time you're you use

:16:56. > :16:57.them. You can also select options like not allowing any online

:16:58. > :17:01.payments so that you can choose exactly what you want your card to

:17:02. > :17:05.be used for, and when. You can register your cards and then look

:17:06. > :17:11.through your transactions, seeing them turned into some nice, if not a

:17:12. > :17:16.little scary, graphs. Then, from learning your habits, it'll also

:17:17. > :17:19.provide personalised location-based offers - something this event showed

:17:20. > :17:23.there was a growing trend towards. Deutsche Bank have been the first to

:17:24. > :17:28.sign up to using the app, but its success will be dependent on other

:17:29. > :17:32.banks following. PaySend is an app due to be released later this year.

:17:33. > :17:37.It provides a way of being able to make a credit or debit card payment

:17:38. > :17:42.directly to someone else's card. Meaning that, if you're paying a

:17:43. > :17:47.friend or, indeed, anyone, you don't need to do a full-on online

:17:48. > :17:51.transfer. Its makers hope that it will prove a good solution for easy

:17:52. > :17:57.and secure global money transfers - but of course, there is plenty of

:17:58. > :18:03.competition. They plan to charge a basic 1% plus ?1 fee for a

:18:04. > :18:06.same-currency payment, with added costs for cross-currency

:18:07. > :18:10.transactions. But they will need a licence from the financial

:18:11. > :18:15.authorities first. But the question that this type of tech always comes

:18:16. > :18:21.back to is how secure is all your data going to be? People need to be

:18:22. > :18:23.careful. You need to know the company you're dealing with.

:18:24. > :18:30.Generally if they're regulated, they're going to be fairly safe to

:18:31. > :18:35.deal with. You can also look at whether they're working with banks

:18:36. > :18:40.or Karnetworks. Over time, people are doing things they said they

:18:41. > :18:45.would never do. Gradually, as we use technology, it becomes normal. So

:18:46. > :18:52.people are using more new technologies. If something makes

:18:53. > :18:59.things faster, easier or cheaper, it's likely to be popular. It's not

:19:00. > :19:04.just about making our lives easier, but about securing our devices.

:19:05. > :19:11.Forget fingerprint identification - this is all about eyeprint. Eye

:19:12. > :19:17.verifies iPrint ID is already being used by some US banks. The level of

:19:18. > :19:19.encryption is equivalent to a 50-letter password, and you don't

:19:20. > :19:26.need to remember anything other than to open your eyes. We do find that

:19:27. > :19:30.we get much better match scores when we use both eye veins and

:19:31. > :19:38.microfeatures. We've tested them separately, and they both work. But

:19:39. > :19:43.when you combine eye veins and microfeatures, we get a much better

:19:44. > :19:45.score. Its creators could be laughing all the way to the bank if

:19:46. > :20:00.it extends beyond finance. The work here at Cern is some of the

:20:01. > :20:04.most extreme research being done anywhere in the known universe. So

:20:05. > :20:10.far, we've seen the control room, and we've seen the Large Hadron

:20:11. > :20:18.Collider itself. Now, it's time to see the place where it all happens.

:20:19. > :20:23.One of four locations where those two high-energy protonbeams actually

:20:24. > :20:25.collide. And it is absolutely jaw-dropping.

:20:26. > :20:29.LAUGHS Oh! Right, now we're talking! This,

:20:30. > :20:53.for me, is hallowed turf. This is called the CMS. It's the

:20:54. > :20:57.Compact Nuon Solar Noise. Nothing compact about it, if you ask me!

:20:58. > :21:05.This is, um, a bit spiritual, really.

:21:06. > :21:12.15m across, this leviathan is a collection of detectors that all

:21:13. > :21:18.focus their attention on what's happening in the very centre. And

:21:19. > :21:25.only because it's down for maintenance - only because it's open

:21:26. > :21:31.- can we take you to its very heart. Right. We're now all gonna see

:21:32. > :21:41.something that not many people will ever get to see in their life. The

:21:42. > :21:44.inside of the CMS. So this is where the beam of pro tonnes comes - it

:21:45. > :21:48.shoots through here. It collides with another beam of protons that

:21:49. > :21:52.comes the other way. In the dead centre of this thing is where the

:21:53. > :21:58.collision happens. The debris has is flung out, and this massive detector

:21:59. > :22:04.sifts through that wreckage looking for evidence of new particles. The

:22:05. > :22:09.beginnings of the universe. SIGHS

:22:10. > :22:13.All right, compose yourself! It turns out that it's not just

:22:14. > :22:17.overwhelming for first-time visitors like me. Stephanie, one of many

:22:18. > :22:23.scientists who churn through the data generated by the LHC, likes to

:22:24. > :22:27.come down here as often as possible. As a physicist, your everyday work

:22:28. > :22:32.is basically being in front of a laptop. Sometimes, like everyone in

:22:33. > :22:37.the industry, you're frustrated by forgetting why you're doing this

:22:38. > :22:40.work. So coming here and having a view to the detect detector with

:22:41. > :22:44.also visitors and showing them how great it is just reminds me really

:22:45. > :22:50.why I'm doing such, because this is amazing to see what we can build all

:22:51. > :22:55.together to make some research and discovery as we are expecting. So,

:22:56. > :23:00.job's done now. You've detected the Higgs boson. Switch it off, take it

:23:01. > :23:03.apart, and move on? No, no! We still have plenty of things to detect!

:23:04. > :23:09.What do you want to detect next? We still have a lot of unknown, like

:23:10. > :23:13.why do we have more matters and antimatter, for example? We still

:23:14. > :23:16.don't understand what we call dark matter or dark energy in the

:23:17. > :23:19.universe. It could be coming from new particles that we are trying to

:23:20. > :23:25.detect in this detector. So we have plenty of things to do. Yep, the LHC

:23:26. > :23:32.certainly has its work cut out for it, for at least the next 20 years.

:23:33. > :23:38.The collisions may be tiny, but the impact they'll have on our

:23:39. > :23:45.understanding of the universe - and ultimately mankind's path through it

:23:46. > :23:52.- will be massive. And I'm really sorry, but that is it from Click at

:23:53. > :24:04.Cern. I don't know about you but, um... ..Yeah. I'm emotional. I'm

:24:05. > :24:06.gonna stick a tonne of photos on Twitter, so @BBCclick is where you

:24:07. > :24:08.can find them, and you can check out our website for more throughout the

:24:09. > :24:31.week. We'll see you soon. A weekend of big weather contrasts

:24:32. > :24:37.across the UK and here is why. This one is making all

:24:38. > :24:41.the way back across the Atlantic.