Help!! Particle accelerators

echelon4

I want to know what particle accelerators do but can't seem to find anything anywhere! I've been searching everywhere, but the answers are very vague.

My question is what do particle accelerators tell us about the structure/ behaviour matter? How do they do this?

I've seen answer like 'they disrupt the nucleus and act as a probe' etc, but i still don't get HOW this disruption will explain anything about the structure/behaviour of matter

Please help, i've got an assignment due and i'm stressing out!!

Thanks in advanced.

ZapperZ

I have a feeling that what you want is not "particle accelerators" but rather "particle colliders". There's a difference.

Particle accelerators, by its name, accelerate particles up to a certain energy. What happens afterwards, or what you do with those accelerated particles depends on the mission of your work. At high energy physics laboratories such as CERN and Fermilab, they take these particles and collide them, thus the name "particle colliders". On the other hand, at various synchrotron centers, they take these accelerated particles and put them into a circular storage ring and let them go on and on and on and on.... to produce light that is then use to study other things. The last thing they want is for this particles to collide and degrade its quality.

If you want to know what particle colliders do and how they study fundamental particles, you should go to the CERN or Fermilab websites.

Zz.