So the earth survived and life goes on as normal. I liked the scrolling comment on BBC news 24 yesterday morning. “Scientists are not expecting any adverse reaction when the LHC is switched on.” Adverse reaction! What like a black hole opening up and swallowing the earth?

Anyway it seems to have been a outstanding success, even if it took the beam over an hour to make it all the way round the first time.

Perhaps they were using the wrong sort of Proton?

Anyway looks like there should be lots of exciting results over the next couple of years. If nothing else it’s raised the profile of science and in particular physics. Even the Weasel and the Munch were interested in what was going on, and rapidly exhausted my very limited knowledge of particle physics during tea. I think I’ll stick to birdwatching.