• The Large Hadron Collider

  • Interactive
  • Video
  • Blog
  • News
  • Briefing
  • Podcast
  • Features
  • Essay
  • Editorial
  • Nature Physics: Editorial
  • Nature Jobs
  • Nature Insight

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's most powerful particle accelerator. As the first proton beams zipped around the LHC's massive 27-kilometre ring on 10 September 2008, it marked a new era of physics that could pin down the identity of the dark matter that shapes galaxies; find the Higgs boson, believed to confer mass on the other particles of the quantum bestiary; and recreate conditions that existed a split-second after the Big Bang. In this online Special, Nature asks how it works, what it will find, and why we should be excited.

• Interactive

  • 
    • How the LHC works
    • Click on the accelerators and experiments to find out how a whiff of gas turns into a fireball that mimics the creation of the universe.
    • 9 September 2008

• Video

  • 
    • Nobel perspective
    • At this year's Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, David Gross (Nobel Prize for Physics 2004) told Nature what the LHC means to the physics community and shared his hopes for the collider.

• Blog

  • 
    • In the Field
    • Join our reporter Geoff Brumfiel as he blogs from the LHC's start-up.
    • 9 September 2008

• News

  • 
    • LHC students face data drought
    • Computer simulations are the only option when the world's largest particle accelerator isn't working.
    • 29 July 2009
  • 
    • LHC further delayed
    • Giant accelerator won't smash protons before July 2009.
    • 5 December 2008
  • 
    • How to repair the biggest science experiment in the world
    • Physicists get CSI on the LHC.
    • 29 October 2008
  • 
    • Eight-month delay for LHC
    • Broken magnets put particle collider in limbo.
    • 17 October 2008
  • 
    • LHC meltdown before first collision
    • Europe's largest particle accelerator might not produce data until 2009.
    • 22 September 2008
  • 
    • LHC switches on
    • Giant accelerator sees first beam circulate successfully.
    • 10 September 2008
  • 
    • Voices from the collider
    • Nature talks to physicists about their hopes for the Large Hadron Collider.
    • 10 September 2008
  • 
    • Physicists flock to Geneva
    • The start up of the world's biggest particle collider lures researchers from around the world.
    • 9 September 2008
  • 
    • Double first for Large Hadron Collider
    • Counter-clockwise beam test produces historic particle collisions.
    • 25 August 2008

• Briefing

  • 
    • LHC by the numbers
    • The Large Hadron Collider — the largest particle accelerator in the world — just oozes numerical hyperbole.
    • 9 September 2008

• Podcast

  • 
    • The LHC switches on
    • The Large Hadron Collider is finally ready to go. Geoff Brumfiel talks to CERN theorist John Ellis about his hopes for the project — and what happens if there are no Higgs bosons.
    • 9 September 2008

• Features

  • 
    • Newsmaker of the year: The machine maker
    • He did more than anyone to build the Large Hadron Collider. This year he saw it finished -- and then break down. Geoff Brumfiel profiles the LHC's project leader, Nature's newsmaker of the year.
    • 17 December 2008
  • 
    • The race to break the standard model
    • The Large Hadron Collider is the latest attempt to move fundamental physics past the frustratingly successful 'standard model'. But it is not the only way to do it. Geoff Brumfiel surveys the contenders attempting to capture the prize before the collider gets up to speed.
    • 10 September 2008
  • 
    • Big data: Welcome to the petacentre
    • What does it take to store bytes by the tens of thousands of trillions? Cory Doctorow meets the people and machines for which it's all in a day's work.
    • 3 September 2008
  • 
    • Particle physics: Let the games begin
    • A series of mental challenges is helping physicists to prepare for the strange data they may get when the next particle accelerator goes live. Jenny Hogan joins the work-out.
    • 16 March 2006

• Essay

  • 
    • Paris 1951: The birth of CERN
    • François de Rose chaired the meeting that founded Europe's premier facility for experimental nuclear and particle research. Here he relives the five days of drama that changed the world of physics.
    • 9 September 2008

• Editorial

  • 
    • Cool philosophies
    • High-energy physicists should not gloss over fundamental conundrums.
    • 10 September 2008
  • 
    • A unifying force
    • The questions to be explored at the Large Hadron Collider offer a chance to rekindle public interest in the fundamental principles of the Universe in which we live.
    • 19 July 2007

• Nature Physics: Editorial

  • 
    • Here we go...
    • After almost three decades of preparation, CERN's Large Hadron Collider is turning on.
    • 9 September 2008

• Nature Jobs

  • 
    • Collision course
    • This month, all eyes in the high-energy-physics community will be on the long-awaited launch of CERN's new particle collider. But US budget cuts and an uncertain job market mean the field has little else to celebrate.
    • 10 September 2008

• Nature Insight

  • 
    • The Large Hadron Collider
    • The highest-energy accelerator ever built heralds a new era in particle-physics research, in which we hope to complete the standard model and even go beyond, into a new realm of physics.
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    • 18 July 2007