ArcelorMittal helped CERN discover Higgs boson-like God particle!

Tuesday, 24 July 2012 - 12:37pm India News Bulletin Desk

The 27-km long CERN LHC (Large Hadron Collider) tunnel

Image: Wikimedia Commons (Juhanson)

If you think Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal’s ArcelorMittal has nothing to do with CERN scientists’ discovery of Higgs boson-like God particle that may have answers to how the universe was formed, think again.

On July 4, 2012, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) centre in Switzerland said that they may have discovered the subatomic particle or ‘God’ particle as it is sometimes called.

The breakthrough for the 45-year hunt for the Higgs boson particle came after the scientists conducted two experiments in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider).

But the breakthrough, which is as significant as the discovery of DNA in 1953, would not have been possible without ArcelorMittal, the company said.

ArcelorMittal Flat Carbon Europe’s specialist steel was used to build the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – the particle accelerator that fires trillions of protons around a 27km tunnel at 99.99% of the speed of light, according to Lakshmi Mittal’s steel and mining company.

In 1998, CERN, one of the largest scientific research centres, issued a call for tenders to 25 suppliers for the manufacture of 50,000 tonnes of magnets with strictly identical properties for the construction of the LHC.

The manufacturing specifications (chemical composition, rolling temperatures, quality of upper surface) had to be guaranteed to rule out any deviation of the high speed proton beam movement.

ArcelorMittal won the contract after it offered a new, high thickness magnetic steel guaranteeing a weak coercive field.

“Thanks to close collaboration between ArcelorMittal’s research and development (R&D), technology and commercial teams, our company won the contract,” according to the company.

ArcelorMittal has been a partner to CERN for more than 50 years, and was a sponsor of the official LHC inauguration in 2008 at which global head of its R&D Greg Ludkovsky was a guest.

ArcelorMittal S.A. was formed in 2006 when India’s Mittal Steel Company took over Arcelor. Lakshmi Mittal is its chairman and chief executive.

Although the company is officially headquartered in Luxembourg, it is managed and operated out of its London office. ArcelorMittal was ranked 70th on the Fortune Global 500 list in 2012.