At 4:27 a.m. this morning, Eastern time, protons made their first circuit around a 17-mile-long racetrack known as the Large Hadron Collider, 300 feet underneath the Swiss-French border, and then made a return journey, according to the NY Times. Read more…

Scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) outside Geneva, succeeded in turning on the most powerful microscope ever built for investigating the elemental particles and forces of nature. (See NewsHour report.)

One of the first particles scientists hope to find is the elusive Higgs Boson particle, known as the ‘god particle’. See images from different particle collisions over the years, including attempts to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson.

Locally, NJN News ran a story on Princeton and Rutgers scientists involved with the Collider, watch here:

While scientists don’t know just yet what laws will prevail under these conditions, the Large Hadron Collider could prove that string theory is not just a crazy idea, but crazy reality. Watch “The Elegant Universe,” a three-part series on NOVA about the nuts, bolts, and sometimes outright nuttiness of string theory. (Originally aired October 2003).