Money: large numbers

Most people have no real understanding of how much represent large amounts of money. We lack reference points. Such reference points will progressively be added below:

• US$ 8 billions: building and operating the Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator and collider located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. Currently under construction, the LHC is scheduled to begin operation (at reduced energies) in November 2007. The LHC is expected to become the world's largest and highest energy particle accelerator in 2008, when commissioning at 7 TeV is completed. The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from 34 countries, universities and laboratories.

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