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THE vast new Cern particle collider has only just hummed into life, but physicists are already drawing up plans for a still larger machine to answer the questions even Albert Einstein was unable to resolve.

The International Linear Collider (ILC) would be a machine up to 31 miles long, comprising two giant “guns” that would accelerate electrons and particles of antimatter called positrons to near-light speeds before smashing them together.The results could open up some of the hottest topics in physics, such as the existence of extra dimensions, the origins of gravity and even how the big bang – the event that created the universe – happened.