Large Hadron Collider Smashes Protons, Sets Record
The Large Hadron Collider has had a smashing success, bringing together twin beams of protons to create a record-shattering atom smashup.
Earlier this month the "big bang machine" had broken its own energy record when it sent two 3.5-trillion-electron-volt (TeV) proton beams racing in opposite directions around the collider's 17-mile-long (27-kilometer-long) underground tunnel.
Today, at 1:06 p.m. local time in Geneva, Switzerland, LHC operators smashed those beams of protons together to create a record-shattering 7-TeV collision.
Reaching this point has been "marvelous," said David Evans, a physicist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and head of the LHC's ALICE detector project.
"I've been involved in [the LHC] personally for over ten years. ... It's like waiting ten years for Christmas to come," said
