Officials at Cern, the European nuclear research organisation in Geneva, are to switch on the world's most powerful particle accelerator on 10 September. But what, if anything, will it find?
It is the day thousands of physicists and engineers around the world have been waiting for. Next month, with the click of a mouse, not the pull of a lever, scientists at Cern will attempt to send a beam of particles around the Large Hadron Collider's 27km ring at 0.999999991 times the speed of light.
It's an extraordinary machine and with luck, it will usher in a new era of physics. Recently, Sean Carroll over at Cosmic Variance aired his own thoughts on what the collider might find.
Visit our own extensive guide to the Large Hadron Collider, with essays by the Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, philosopher A.C. Grayling and comedian Chris Morris.
