Present at the Creation : Discovering the Higgs Boson

"The collider is now crashing protons at record energy levels never created by scientists before, and it will reach even higher levels by 2013. Its superconducting magnets guide two beams of protons in opposite directions around the track. After accelerating the beams to 99.9999991 percent of the speed of light, it collides the protons head-on, annihilating them in a flash of energy sufficient in accordance with Einstein s elegant statement of mass-energy equivalence, E=mc2 to coalesce into a shower of particles and phenomena that have not existed since the first moments of creation. Within the LHC s detectors, scientists hope to see empirical confirmation of key theories in physics and cosmology. In telling the story of what is perhaps the most anticipated experiment in the history of science, Amir D. Aczel takes us inside the control rooms at CERN at key moments when an international team of top researchers begins to discover whether this multibillion-euro investment will fulfill its spectacular promise. Through the eyes and words of the men and women who conceived and built CERN and the LHC and with the same clarity and depth of knowledge he demonstrated in the