Prof. Julia Thom, physics, presented results from the Large Hadron Collider’s first year of operation on Sept. 19 in Schwartz Auditorium. The LHC at the European Organization of Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, is meant to address the fundamentals of physics, according to the organization’s website. So far, the LHC has found no evidence of two important theories in physics, the Higgs boson and Supersymmetry.

Underneath the ground in Switzerland and France there lies the world’s largest machine, designed to accelerate matter to nearly the speed of light in order to understand the basic rules of the universe. 15 miles around the Large Hadron Collider, is the most expensive experiment in history combining the resources of over 28 nation states. Hongwan Liu ’11 has been analyzing information directly from the LHC.

GENEVA (AP) — The world's largest atom smasher — which was launched with great fanfare earlier this month — has been damaged worse than previously thought and will be out of commission for at least two months, its operators said Saturday.

Experts have gone into 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border to examine the damage that halted operations about 36 hours after its Sept. 10 startup, said James Gillies, spokesman for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

A group of hackers identifying themselves as the 2600 succeeded in hacking into a computer network of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. CERN scientists said the network is used to analyze data from the new accelerator’s Compact Muon Detector.

The Large Hadron Collider, (LHC) began operation in early September, but will not begin smashing particles until late in the year. The particle collisions will recreate conditions the universe has not seen since a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

The hacker team 2600 also identified themselves as the “Greek Security Team” and was competing against a rival hacker group to successfully tap the computer system of history’s largest physics experiment.