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First beam in Large Hadron Collider

Date: 10-Sep-08
Author: CERN

The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres [16.8 miles] of the world's most powerful particle accelerator at 8:26 GMT [4:26 a.m. EDT] on 10 Sept. 2008. This historic event marks a key moment in the transition from over two decades of preparation to a new era of scientific discovery.

Starting up a major new particle accelerator takes much more than flipping a switch. Thousands of individual elements have to work in harmony, timings have to be synchronized to under a billionth of a second, and beams finer than a human hair have to be brought into head-on collision.

The Large Hadron Collider lies 50 to 175 meters [164 to 574 feet] underground and straddles the Swiss and French borders on the outskirts of Geneva. Courtesy: CERN

Once colliding beams have been established, there will be a period of measurement and calibration for the LHC's four major experiments, and new results could start to appear in around a year. Experiments at the LHC will allow physicists to complete a journey that started with Newton's description of gravity.

"The LHC is a discovery machine," said CERN Director General Robert Aymar, "its research programme has the potential to change our view of the Universe profoundly, continuing a tradition of human curiosity that's as old as mankind itself."

Full story: First beam in the LHC -- accelerating science