Physics in fast-forward

During their first run, experiments at the Large Hadron Collider rediscovered 50 years' worth of physics research in a single month. In 2010, the brand-spanking-new CMS and ATLAS detectors started taking data for the first time. But the question physicists asked was not, “Where is the Higgs boson?” but rather “Do these things actually work?” “Each detector is its own prototype,” says UCLA physicist Greg Rakness, run coordinator for the CMS experiment. “We don’t get trial runs wit...