Scientists in Switzerland are building a machine to test the big-bang theory of how the universe began. But first they have to construct a computer network that can handle the volumes of data the device will produce.

The new, more powerful particle accelerator, known as the Large Hadron Collider, is being built at CERN, the same Swiss laboratory where Tim Berners-Lee developed the World Wide Web. With such a tool, scientists say that they will either be able to produce the same particles thought to have existed when the universe was formed, or they will have proved that such particles just don’t exist.