In the age-old quest for humankind to discover the secrets of the universe, humankind has progressed today as the Large Hadron Collider successfully smashed protons by zipping the subatomic particles around a 17-mile loop at speeds that were about 99 percent of the speed of light. The goal, nothing less than to figure out how the universe works and what holds it together. What does this have to do with broadband, cloud computing or wireless? Frankly, I have no idea, but I’m convinced that such efforts advance technology, and act to inspire future generations of engineers and scientists.
Indeed, while it may not be apparent from my normal coverage, the LHC built by CERN represents why I spend my days writing about technology — not because I’m excited to play with the latest gadgets, but because I value the spirit of curiosity and discovery that leads scientists to spend $16 billion to build something that may (not will, but may) give us an inkling about how the universe works. And if it enables us to teleport, that’s cool, too. So if you’re interested (and how can you not be?), step away from the iPad coverage and check out these links:
- Official CERN Announcement of Success
- Time Traveling Particles Out to Destroy the LHC
- The LHC Will Kill Us All
- A Photo Tour of the LHC
- CERN’s Twitter Page and its live webcast
- Comic from Jorge Cham explaining LHC
- Because I love it: The Large Hadron Rap
- The BBC’s guide to the LHC
- TED video on LHC (embedded below)

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