system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is it, that the smaller of a particle we want to detect, the larger of a detector we must build?
gpt
All of these very small particles are held together by very strong forces. In order to find smaller particles, we have to bash them together at very high speeds in order to break those forces and see what things are made of. It's not the *detector* that's large, it's the particle accelerator. We use electromagnetic force to zip things around giant racetracks until they're going nearly the speed of light. Then, when they bash into something else the forces involved are strong enough to break up very small particles into the things they are made of.