London (PTI): Scientists working on to recreate forces that occurred immediately after the Big Bang, which created the world, have received death threats from critics who claim it could cause the end of the universe.

The experiment going inside a 27-kms tunnel deep beneath the French-Swiss border which is ready to fire up the biggest experiment in recent times on Wednesday hope to recapture conditions not seen since the birth of the universe almost 14 billion years ago, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The machine costing a staggering 4.4 billion pounds is located at Cern, a Geneva based nuclear research lab.

But now, some of the scientists working on the machine, including a Welsh miner's son and a former pop star, have received threatening e-mails.

They have also been flooded by telephone calls from worried people who fear the experiments could trigger earthquakes and could cause mini black holes that would destroy the world.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will fire particles around the tunnel. It will then smash protons - one of the building blocks of matter - into each other at energies up to seven times greater than ever achieved.

Experts hope to find answers to some of the biggest questions in physics such as why the universe looks the way it does and how to explain mass, gravity and mysterious "dark matter".

One of the leading figures behind the experiment is Dr Lynn Evans, the son of a miner, who said his fascination with science started as a boy, when he would create small explosions with his chemistry set at his council house in Aberdare.

Another is Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University, who also said that the team members have received death threats.