supercollider

noun

su·​per·​col·​lid·​er ˈsü-pər-kə-ˌlī-dər How to pronounce supercollider (audio)
: a very large collider capable of accelerating particles to very high energies

Examples of supercollider in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Some of these yield dead ends while others lead to stages that take No Man to different points in the evolution of Earth — from an ancient Greek amphitheater to a feudal Japanese countryside to jazz-age Harlem to the laboratory of a supercollider and finally to a place of shape-shifting spirits. Washington Post, 12 Apr. 2021 As particles crash into each other at near the speed of light inside a supercollider, some of their combined kinetic energy is converted into mass, creating new particles such as the Higgs. Yuen Yiu, Discover Magazine, 15 Oct. 2019 Because a supercollider slams together protons at unbelievable velocities (nearing the speed of light) and energies, all sorts of strange and exotic particles can pop out, potentially including a black hole. Adam Mann, Scientific American, 14 Feb. 2023 In 2012, the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced a plan to build the next great supercollider. Yuen Yiu, Discover Magazine, 15 Oct. 2019 The Ugly Since their proposal, both the European and Chinese plans for a new supercollider have sparked criticism from those who doubt the projects will prove their worth. Yuen Yiu, Discover Magazine, 15 Oct. 2019 What to do with the 14-mile supercollider tunnel: Just rename it the Martha Washington Monument. Gene Weingarten, Washington Post, 8 Dec. 2022 The new circular supercollider will sit next to its predecessor at CERN in Switzerland, but will be nearly three times its size, with a circumference of 100 kilometers. Andrea Willige, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2021 In 2012, the world’s biggest supercollider discovered the Higgs boson, completing the Standard Model of particle physics. Quanta Magazine, 14 June 2016

Word History

First Known Use

1983, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of supercollider was in 1983

Dictionary Entries Near supercollider

Cite this Entry

“Supercollider.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/supercollider. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!