large hadron collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex, intended to collide opposing beams of 7 TeV protons.
Its main purpose is to explore the validity and limitations of the Standard Model, the current theoretical picture for particle physics. It is theorized the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson, the observation of which could confirm the predictions and missing links in the Standard Model of physics and could explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass.
The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and lies underneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. It is funded by and built in collaboration with over eight thousand physicists from over eighty-five countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. The LHC is now operational, and in the process of being prepared for first collisions. The first beam was circulated through the collider on the morning of 10 September 2008. The first high-energy collisions are planned to take place after the LHC is officially unveiled on 21 October 2008.