Elon Musk says he talked to CERN about building tunnels for its biggest ever particle collider
- Elon Musk said on Twitter that the director of research lab CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, asked him about collaborating on a new particle collider.
- The new particle collider is slated to be four times the size of the Large Hadron Collider.
- Musk said she asked him whether The Boring Company could build tunnels for proposed new collider.
- A CERN spokesman confirmed that Gianotti met Musk in July last year.
- The project is not yet set in stone, and a spokesman said that a decision would need to be taken "in the next few years."
Scientists have an ambitious new plan to explore the mysteries of the universe, and Elon Musk might be there to help.
The Tesla chief executive said on Twitter that he was approached by research organisation CERN, which houses the world's largest particle accelerator. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is famous for facilitating the discovery of the Higgs Boson.
Musk said CERN's director, Fabiola Gianotti, talked to him about his tunnelling company potentially digging tunnels for a new particle accelerator, which would be four times larger than the (LHC). Musk's Boring Company is an infrastructure firm mostly focused on building new tunnels to ease traffic congestion.
Musk said the Boring Company could help save billions of euros.
CERN announced a design report for a new particle collider, called the Future Circular Collider (FCC), on Monday.
The FCC would be about four times the size of the LHC, which runs for 27 km (just under 17 miles) under Switzerland.
Here is a video of the new design:
A spokesman for CERN confirmed to Business Insider that director Fabiola Gianotti met Elon Musk at the Royal Society in July last year.
"In view of projects for future larger accelerators, CERN is always open to new, cost-effective technologies that could lead to their implementation, including the tunnels that will be needed," the spokesman added.
Musk founded the Boring Company in 2016, and the company unveiled its first test tunnel in December, and its tunnelling equipment currently makes headway about 14 times slower than a snail - although Musk said at the launch party for the tunnel, "Aspirationally, we should be slightly faster than a snail."
Read more: Elon Musk's Boring Company axes plans to build a massive tunnel under Los Angeles
The plans for the FCC are not yet set in stone. "CERN is seriously considering a large collider to take over when the LHC will stop operations around 2035-2040," the spokesman said. "Considering the time scale of such projects, a decision would need to be taken in the next few years."