What exactly is CERN trying to achieve with all these crazy experiments?

 In a 27-kilometer underground ring, scientists are smashing protons together at 99.9999991% the speed of light to recreate the exact conditions of the Big Bang.

This massive machine, the Large Hadron Collider, is effectively the largest microscope ever built. But instead of using light to look at cells, it uses these high-energy collisions to examine the fundamental fabric of reality. At its heart, CERN's mission is to figure out what the universe is made of and how it works at the most granular level. Everything people see around them is made of fundamental particles, but the rules governing those particles are still not entirely understood.

One of the most famous achievements of this effort was the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, a particle that proves the existence of an invisible energy field giving mass to everything in the universe. But the current mathematical framework, known as the Standard Model of particle physics, is visibly incomplete. Scientists at CERN are currently hunting for evidence of dark matter, the invisible substance that accounts for about 85% of the mass in the universe. They are also trying to solve the mystery of antimatter. The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which would have annihilated each other, leaving nothing. Instead, the universe is made almost entirely of regular matter, and physicists are using CERN's antimatter factory to figure out why.

While the primary goal is pure theoretical physics, the extreme engineering required for these experiments consistently pushes technological boundaries. The World Wide Web was originally invented at CERN in 1989 simply to help international scientists share massive amounts of experimental data. Technologies developed for CERN's particle detectors have also revolutionized medical imaging, directly contributing to the development of modern PET scans and advanced targeted therapies.

Ultimately, CERN is trying to fill the remaining blank spaces in human understanding of the physical world. Smashing particles together at unimaginable speeds is simply the only known way to force the universe to reveal its smallest and most closely guarded secrets.

What are some interesting psychological experiments?

 This is called the Napkin Experiment.

Next time you have a party at work or home, try this and see for yourself.

The first time, put these common/regular napkins in a bunch for the guests to use.

Watch them abuse these napkins, just pulling them out as they please, in any numbers. Most people will take more than one. They will trash this napkin without care and get more as needed.

The second time, use these instead. Nothing really fancy here compared to the previous napkin - just a different, bright color.

Watch the difference this time. People will treat them as special, being careful to just pull one at a time. They will also preserve this napkin longer.

People automatically assign importance when something appears different or fancier than what they are used to.

This is also the same principle where well dressed people are usually treated better.

Be different, in a good way, to be treated special.

What are some strange but fascinating scientific experiments?

 A small team of researchers from Spain and Mexico made a discovery, almost by accident, which

was later published in the renowned journal

Physics Review Letters .

Thousands of cubes randomly poured into a glass align themselves perfectly when the mixture is subjected to "oscillating rotation," that is, alternately accelerated clockwise and counterclockwise.

The researchers poured 25,000 plastic cubes into a transparent cylinder. They then tested various shaking techniques to determine which resulted in the highest compaction of the cubes.
They found that alternating rotation (left-right-left-right) worked best. However, the individual rotations had to be performed at high speed.
This caused the cubes to align themselves from top to bottom, forming concentric circles in each layer.

At an acceleration of 0.52 g, the pile of cubes reached its maximum density after 10,000 alternating angular impulses.
This seems to work significantly better than a simple "jerking," because at a state of medium density, the latter causes the cubes to wedge themselves together and remain stuck.
If the rotational impulses are too slow, the compaction and alignment of the cubes could potentially take years.

The researchers now hope that their findings will open up a potential new way to compact materials during the manufacturing process.