Large Hadron Collider

This fall, the massive Large Hadron Collider beneath France and Switzerland will switch on

The hammering has stopped, the whining of power tools has abated. Only the hum of electronic detectors reverberates through the cavernous, eight-story space below the Swiss-Franco border that is stuffed with 9,300 magnets and enough niobium-titanium wire to stretch to the sun and back five times.