The foundations of the universe have been glimpsed in Manchester by scientists who have created the thinnest possible material.
Flat, parallel sheets of carbon atoms in the graphite of pencil lead have been peeled apart by the scientists to yield a sheet a single atom thick that has peculiar properties which made the fundamental feat possible.
This new material, called graphene, is exciting physicists worldwide because it provides the wherewithal to probe the workings of the universe and without the need for exotic equipment, such as the £4.5 billion atom smasher being readied for use near Geneva.
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"Graphene behaves as if the electrical current within it is not carried by normal electrons but by charged particles with no mass at all. Scientists call them 'Dirac fermions'"
I'm still trying to understand the finer points of the article, but the 'Atom smasher''s effects, have been debatably catastrophic to the environment around them, much like the H-bomb's technology's splitting of the Hydrogen atom. I will post more on this later, please check out the article