China’s Proposed Particle Accelerator: Revolutionizing Physics or Triggering Controversy?

China’s proposed circular electron positron accelerator (CEPC) has the potential to revolutionize particle physics and enable groundbreaking discoveries for decades to come. Eliezer Rabinovici, a professor emeritus of physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and president of CERN, believes that Chinese scientists have the capacity to build the largest particle accelerator on Earth.

The CEPC would far exceed the current world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), with a circumference of 100 km. However, the Chinese government has yet to approve the project, which has sparked controversy within the country’s scientific community. Physicist and Nobel laureate Yang Chen-ning has been a vocal opponent of the CEPC, citing more pressing issues such as economic development and environmental protection.

Despite this opposition, Rabinovici believes that China’s scientific potential is being underestimated and has witnessed significant progress in Chinese science during his visit in April. The debate over whether China should build the world’s largest particle accelerator has been ongoing for nearly a decade. Wang Yifang, director of IHEP, proposed the CEPC project in 2012 following the discovery of the Higgs boson in Europe. By accelerating electrons and positrons to high energies and colliding them, the CEPC would enable scientists to make new discoveries beyond the standard model of particle physics.

While the construction cost of over 5 billion USD for the CEPC is substantial, Wang emphasizes that the long-term benefits of