Playing physics: Student builds Lego Large Hadron Collider

[February 27, 2015]  LONDON (Reuters) - A particle physics student has used his downtime to build a Lego model of the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and is now lobbying the toy company to take it to market.

Nathan Readioff's design uses existing Lego pieces to replicate all four elements of the LHC -- known as ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and LHCb -- and uses cutaway walls to reveal all of the major subsystems.

He also wrote step-by-step guides to making the miniatures and has now submitted his models to the Lego Ideas website, where ideas from members of the public that get more than 10,000 votes are considered by Lego for future production.

"I have always been a Lego fan," Readioff said in a statement from Liverpool University, where he is in the third year of his PhD. "I had in mind Lego's basic principles of encouraging imagination and play through building bricks."

The LHC in Geneva allows scientists to test the predictions of different theories of physics. Its 27 kilometer (16 mile) ring is buried 100 meters below the French and Swiss countryside.

To see footage of Readioff's model, go to:

https://stream.liv.ac.uk/ndcbkwbt

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by John Stonestreet and Gareth Jones)

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