Exciting Times - LHC Sets Record

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The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has made history and become most powerful particle accelerator on the planet.

In the early hours of Monday morning local time, the LHC accelerated protons to a record-breaking 1.18 TeV (tera-electronvolts). The previous record sat at 0.98 TeV and was achieved by Fermilab's Tevatron in Illinois back in 2001.

"A new record. Both beams in LHC reach 1.18 TeV at 00:42 on 30 November." --@CERN via Twitter

This amazing achievement comes hot on the heels of the first circulation of protons on Nov. 20 and then the surprise announcement that the first low energy collisions had been carried out weeks earlier than expected.

"We are still coming to terms with just how smoothly the LHC commissioning is going," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer today. "However, we are continuing to take it step by step, and there is still a lot to do before we start physics in 2010. I'm keeping my champagne on ice until then."

Now this landmark energy has been accomplished, proton energies will continue to be ramped up and further calibration collisions can be expected. Eventually, once all the systems check out, physicists will see what the LHC can really do as they crank up proton energies closer and closer to the target 7 TeV.

Once these calibration runs are completed we can look forward to high-energy collisions through 2010 and the disastrous "quench" of September 2008 will be nothing more than a dim memory.