AN ACCRINGTON firm has played an important part in the world’s most powerful physics experiment.

Hawk Electronics, based in Malt Street, supplied the electronic circuit boards and cables needed by top scientists for the Large Hadron Collider project at the Geneva-based European Organisation for Nuclear Rese-arch (CERN).

The well-publicised experiment, attempting to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang which created the universe, was started in a tunnel beneath France and Switzerland at 8.30am on Wedn-esday as planned.

But critics claim that it could create a giant black hole capable of swallowing the planet.

Alicia Kay, director of Hawk Electronics, said: "We got involved in the project through Liverpool University, with which we have been working closely for 15 years.

"The highly-technical circuit boards demanded complete precision as there were no margins for error.

"We were really thrilled and proud to be involved with an experiment on this scale."

The experiment, estimated as costing £5billion, has had scientists from more than 60 countries working 250ft underground trying to recreate conditions in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang dawn of the universe 14 billion years ago.

The scientists aim to fire beams of protons at almost the speed of light in opposite directions through a 17-mile ring-shaped frozen tunnel.

Each beam will pack as much energy as a 93mph Eurostar train.

The tunnel has been dug under mountain rock in the Alps along the border between Switzerland and France.

Although the big switch-on took place on Wednesday, the first high-energy collisions are not due until 21 October.

The CERN team insist the project is safe and say it could bring massive benefits such as a cure for cancer and solutions to nuclear waste and global warming.

Representatives of Hawk Electronics attended a reception at the World Museum in Liver-pool yesterday to celebrate their involvement with this project.