Yesterday, even though 10’000 km away from CERN, I witnessed the events at LHC live, from my computer. Thanks to the LHC status screens and the excellent live webcast from CERN, I was able to join in with the excitement in the control rooms as the beam energy was ramped up and the beams were finally aligned for collisions, as well as the disappointment when the beams were dumped earlier on. Quite a unique experience!
I really feel with everyone who is involved more deeply with this challenging endeavor, and I am even a little envious that in theoretical physics, we have nothing as exciting going on that could take our breath away like this.
Even though my daily work as a theorist, and my current research in particular, is fairly far removed from the events at LHC, I am still a particle physicists, and what’s happening now at LHC is simply the single most important progress that’s been made in particle physics in years. It’s new physics in the making, and we’ve all been waiting for it for a long time. The promise of LHC has been with me since my undergraduate time, when LEP II was still running.
Apart from this, I have to say I am quite fascinated with this complex machine, and the webcast has taught me some more things about its inner workings.
All of the particle physics community (the theorists included), will be watching LHC for the months and years to come. What will it teach us?
