WONG: The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle accelerator ever created. Scientists hope that by slamming together two beams of particles at almost the speed of light, they will be able to gain new information about the creation of the universe. But it’s not without controversy. Here's more on the story. STORY: Scientists from around the world are making final preparations for the biggest experiment ever conducted to unlock the secrets of the universe. Housed in a vast cavern 100 meters beneath the French-Swiss border is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. The Large Hadron Collider will recreate conditions not seen since the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang at the dawn of creation. [Lyn Evans, Collider Project Leader]: It's the biggest scientific project ever. Lyn Evans is the LHC project leader at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Two beams of protons - one of the building blocks of matter — will circulate in opposite directions around the underground ring at close to the speed of light. The sub-atomic particles will be smashed together in four huge detectors placed along the 27-kilometer ring, generating showers of energy and matter. Physicists hope those will include the elusive Higgs boson, dubbed the 'God Particle'. According to the Standard Model of physics, this ghostly particle created in the moment following the big bang is responsible for assigning mass to elementary particles. But its existence