Tom Hanks may turn on "big bang machine" once it's fixed

London, Feb 17 (ANI): Actor Tom Hanks has agreed to turn on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) once it has been fixed.

The LHC, which is the world's most powerful particle accelerator, based at the European particle-physics facility CERN in Geneva, is currently being repaired after breaking down in September last year, just nine days after circulating its first proton beams.

Tom Hanks recently visited CERN to promote his new film Angels and Demons, in which he plays Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon, who is investigating a plot to annihilate the Vatican with 0.25 grams of antimatter stolen from CERN.

"I asked Hanks if he'd like to come back for the switch-on and he said 'yes'," Steve Myers, CERN's director of accelerators and technology told Nature News, after giving Hanks a guided tour of the LHC's 7,000-tonne ATLAS experiment on February 13.

Hanks said he expected to use a large, Frankenstein-esque knife switch to bring the 4.1-billion dollars accelerator back to life later this year, rather than the more conventional mouse-click.

"CERN is a beautiful place," he announced at a press conference held after an eight-and-a-half minute preview of the film. "Magic is not happening here, magic is being explained here," he added.

CERN's head of communications, James Gillies, confirmed that the facility "would be delighted" to have Hanks there to re-start the LHC.

Angels and Demons includes footage of the LHC and images of sinister canisters that hold the antimatter suspended inside them. (ANI)