One way to figure out what might have happened during the Big Bang — that massive explosion of matter and energy that physicists think might have marked the birth of the universe — is to spend hours in front of a chalkboard working through massively complicated formulae.

The other, of course, is to go out and create a Big Bang yourself. That is the route to be taken by German researchers along with their particle physics colleagues from over a dozen countries around the world. On Wednesday, those participating in the project will sign an agreement which will eventually result in the construction of a massive new particle accelerator in the western German city of Darmstadt. The goal is to discover new data about the birth of our universe.

"The substance we will be making resembles that in the first microseconds of the Big Bang, when it was a million times hotter than the center of the sun. We're talking a million times 10 million degrees Celsius", says Horst Stöcker, scientific director of the German Society for Heavy Ion Research (GSI).

The project will cost a total of €1.2 billion ($1.7 billion) with the German government set to pick up 65 percent of the price tag. The rest will come from the state of Hesse and from the project's international partners, which include Russia, India, Italy, Poland and China among others. The accelerator itself will have a circumference of over a kilometer and will be built 17 meters underground.

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Write T for true and F for false. After that, choose the alternative that presents the correct sequence.

( ) Big Bang is the name that the physicists give to the massive explosion of matter and energy that might have marked the birth of the universe.

( ) German researchers and physics colleagues will be constructing a massive new particle accelerator in London.

( ) Among others, the following countries will be partners in the experiment: Russia, China, India, Poland and Italy.