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One of the first proton collisions in ALICE. CERN[View Larger Image] December 4, 2009  After 20 years in the making, the first physics results have come out of the European Organization for Nuclear Research's (CERN) Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Physicists from the University of Birmingham played a key role in analyzing these collisions and producing the first results from the 27 km circular atom smasher near Geneva. "I'm immensely proud of the team who have worked so hard", said David Evans, United Kingdom spokesman for the Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) collaboration. "They have been working around the clock at CERN in order to get these results out so quick." The Birmingham group has designed and built the vital ALICE trigger electronics that instructs the detector to record data after a collision, making decisions in less than a tenth of a millionth of a second. "Although we may have to wait a while for the results from high energy collisions, getting results out this early from a new detector is a major achievement," said Evans. "It also shows just how well the detector and the Birmingham-built electronics work." Protons were collided in the LHC for the first time November 23 at relatively low energies. High-energy collisions are expected early next year when physicists hope to discover new secrets about the nature of matter and the early universe. "This is great news," said Keith Mason, from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the United Kingdom. "The LHC is now fully on track and gearing up to some unique and possibly world changing science. We're very proud of the huge contribution of our skilled scientists here in the UK."

High fives all around!

Hopefully we will be able to leap forward in science when it really gets going

Keith Mason is a dickhead. He has been trying to cut UK funding in Particle Physics for years. What a dickhead.

So have they actually LEARNED anything yet?

I don't really see the point of the LHC. Billions of euros for an enormous machine that will prove something which scientists already think is true, which will have no impact on humanity. Then, in a few years, they'll scrap it and build a new one.

I just hate how science is funded in Britain full stop. The amount that is spent on science is pathetic, I've never understood it. It's not like it's an unwise investment, for each pound spent we can expect to see up to seven returned if it's something valuable. For example if we can develop fusion power the amount it would make for us would be tremendous, it would be a wise investment.

Meh, at least we have the leading role at the LHC, that's good.

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Yes, anyway, I can't wait for some substantial results from the LHC. It's great that things seem to be functioning now.

It's not only to find the Higgs Bozon. What if the Higgs Bozon doesn't exist, but it discovers something else that has an even bigger impact?

CERN is much more than just the LHC. The point of the LHC isn't to prove that the Higgs-Boson particle exists, its point is to find out if the Higgs-Boson exists. If the LHC produces an HB, physicists will be able to measure its mass. If the LHC doesn't find an HB then we might have to rethink The Standard Model of Particle Physics. 

100 years ago you probably would have said that The Theory of General Relativity would have no impact on humanity. Without General Relativity humans would have no satellite communication technology. Meaning no internet, no way of predicting the weather accurately, no GPS etc. 

Also the costs of the LHC pale in comparison to the amount of money spent on bailing out the banks. A deeper understanding of the Universe which will almost certainly lead to scientific and technological breakthroughs is worth so much more to humanity than bailing out some careless banks.

So, they think the Higgs-Boson exists, but they're not sure. So, they want to test it.

What would measuring the mass of a Higgs-Boson achieve? Would that allow us to create matter, or something? If it did, that would be amazing...and also pretty freaky.

I suppose you're right about General Relativity, but I won't accept that the LHC is going to benefit the large majority of humanity until I see its effects. I think money would be better spent on medicine, nanotechnology, things which would help the general public and not, most probably, lie in an archive somewhere.

It will answer a lot of fundamental questions to do with Physics. The Higg's boson is hypothesised, but we get some clear evidence for it's existence and how it behaves then we can start addressing some of these questions*. For example it will provide a lot of information for things like supersymmetry (and unified field theory(s)), dark matter, string theory, etc...

I think it will have an effect on humanity. Sure we will one day build a larger particle accelerator, but until then this will provide a lot of information. In fact I seem to recall in a book I read once that to fully understand what happened during the planck epoch we would have to build an accelerator larger than the diameter of the solar system. Obviously that may never happen, but we will always have to look to build a larger one, that's life.

(*Remember, in science it's not enough to say it should exist, you have to be able to prove it)

Right now the results they're getting are just for test purposes, I think. They want to do low-energy collisions first, as starting with high-energy collisions immediately could severely break the machinery if there's something wrong with it.

As for your second paragraph, I won't repeat others' good replies.