The doomsday machine
When the Large Hadron Collider is switched on this Wednesday physicists will attempt to address some of nature's most fundamental questions and will attempt to recreate conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang. Some 2000 scientists from 155 institutes in 36 countries have worked together to build this particle detector. Will it succeed or is this machine the bringer of destruction?
The front of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet and one of the detectors that will take data from CERN's Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator. Image credit: Fabrice Coffrini/ATP/Getty Images
