LHC First Light

Last night a proton beam made its first lap of the Large Hadron Collider, with minimum drama, and almost no ending of the world. (Of course we did inch ever so closer to the Big Rip overnight, but that would have happened even without the LHC.)

Jennifer Oullette on the LHC

Over at Cocktail Party Physics she says a lot more than merely calling them "idiots." Unlike some.

Idiots Trying to Shut Down the LHC

In a Hawaiian court.

James Gillies, head of communications at CERN, said the laboratory as of yet had no comment on the suit. “It’s hard to see how a district court in Hawaii has jurisdiction over an intergovernmental organization in Europe,” Mr. Gillies said.

“There is nothing new to suggest that the L.H.C. is unsafe,” he said, adding that its safety had been confirmed by two reports, with a third on the way, and would be the subject of a discussion during an open house at the lab on April 6.

[Walter L. Wagner] is not mollified. "They’ve got a lot of propaganda saying it’s safe,” he said in an interview, “but basically it’s propaganda.”