What do we need colliders for? (In regard to fundamental forces)

[etamorphmagus]

All the fundamental forces are acting all the time, weak decays etc. So we need colliders so we will have more events per unit time for better analysis?

What is the higher energy for? Proton collison of 14 TeV should "blow" the Higgs out for us to see? In general, how does higher energies reveal to us new mechanisms of nature?

Thank you for you time.

 

[zhermes]

In general, how does higher energies reveal to us new mechanisms of nature?

Certain things only occur at high enough energies. For instance the fusion of two hydrogen atoms into helium. If we have a theory about how hydrogen atoms should interact, we can make a prediction about what should happen with fusion even before we experimentally observe it. To test and develop our theories we then need to actually make those measurements, which require the high energy environment for fusion.

Its the same idea for more modern particle physics. The Higg's boson will only be observable at very (very) high energies, therefore, for us to 'test' whether it actually exists or not---and also to see how it behaves if it does exist---we need to reach those higher energies.