Where is a particle accelerator used?
The largest particle accelerator is the LHC at the CERN in geneva (switzerland/france). Its basically a tubular loop, with powerful electromagnets everywhere around this tube. By switching these magnets on when a charged particle passes in the tube under them, the particles get accelerated. If u keep accelerating those particles over and over in the loop they can achieve speeds very close to the speed of light. By sending two particle-beams in opposite directions in the loop, youll get a powerfull collision on the other side of the loop. The greater the loop, the faster the particles, thus the higher their energy. In these collisions the particles get smacked so hard that they fall apart into their constituents. Detectors then look what particles are created in the collision, and this gives us the composition of the particles send into the accelerator!
