from wired: The Large Hadron Collider, soon-to-be the world’s most powerful atom smasher, begins testing this weekend. CERN will fire the first test beam through one of the particle accelerator’s sectors. “It’s, ‘Let’s see what happens,’ ” Judy Jackson, head of the Office Communications at Fermilab, told Popular Mechanics. “It’s a very complex machine. This is a step towards getting ready.” Then, on September 10th, a full-power beam will travel through the accelerator’s entire 17 miles of tunnels, reaching up to 99.99 percent of the speed of light. And finally, assuming all goes well, the first real science experiments will begin some time in October.
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