This year, that means simulating about two billion proton collisions in ATLAS, which, if you were to start that on your laptop right now, would take somewhere around 15,000 years to finish.

Measurements involving electron collisions can be made very precisely, permitting scientists to discern some of the fine details of physical relationships that are hidden in the complex showers emerging from proton collisions.

Since all particles produced in the LHC's proton collisions are traveling at very close to the speed of light, the force on particles of different momenta is equal.

The detectors collected millions of cosmic rays during the magnet repairs which took place between fall 2008 and fall 2009, prior to the first proton collisions.

Many layers of metal combined with powerful magnetic fields and sensitive instruments within this structure would serve as filters to sort out and measure the sprays of subnuclear particles created by proton collisions.

This is the first time this has been measured in proton collisions at these energies.

Analysis of the LHC's proton collisions takes time and a very large computing grid.

The success in producing proton collisions represents a remarkable comeback for CERN, but the lab is still only halfway back to where it wanted to be.

Scientists hope to learn more about the nature of matter from studying the subatomic particles created by the proton collisions.

Detectors will measure the sprays of subnuclear particles created by the proton collisions, and the findings could answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter.