CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Aerial view of CERN near Geneva in Switzerland showing the path of the tunnel for the LHC (red), which will be switched on in late June/early July. When subatomic particles such as protons and neutrons are smashed together in the LHC, they will break apart and give scientists a peek into how these building blocks of matter are made. One of the goals of the research is to find evidence of the Higgs boson, which is thought to give everything its mass Photograph: CERN

Simulation of the tracks of subatomic particles following detection of a Higgs boson Photograph: CERN

Technicians and engineers worked day and night in the LHC tunnel, installing 20 magnets a week. Each of the dipoles weighs 34 tonnes and is 15 metres long (June 2006) Photograph: Claudia Marcelloni /CERN

Two of the LHC's magnets are welded together (June 2006) Photograph: Maximilien Brice /CERN

Aligning magnets in the LHC tunnel Photograph: Maximilien Brice/CERN

ALICE's "front absorber", in the centre of the detector, after installation and alignment. Weighing more than 400 tonnes, the absorber and the surrounding support structures were installed and aligned with a precision of 1-2 millimetres (11 April 2006) Photograph: Maximilien Brice /CERN

Peter Glassel, technical coordinator of the ALICE Time Projection Chamber, sits in the completed chamber (June 2006) Photograph: Maximilien Brice; Claudia Marcelloni/CERN

Central view of the ATLAS detector with its eight toroids surrounding the calorimeter (November 2005) Photograph: Maximilien Brice/CERN

The ATLAS cavern (April 2007) Photograph: CERN

The Pixel detector is lowered into the ATLAS cavern Photograph: Claudia Marcelloni /CERN

Integration of the three shells into the ATLAS Pixel barrel (December 2006) Photograph: Claudia Marcelloni /CERN

The CMS detector Photograph: Patrice Loiez /CERN

The LHCb experiment (August 2006) Photograph: Claudia Marcelloni /CERN

The partially constructed VELO (VErtex LOcator) of the LHCb experiment (November 2006) Photograph: Maximilien Brice /CERN

The wall of the LHCb electromagnetic calorimeter (May 2005) Photograph: Maximilien Brice /CERN