The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) project has successfully launched, and we're all still alive, for now.

Some people claimed this was going to create a block hole that would surely end life as we know it (What happens when you fall into a blackhole?), and others believed that it would answer many questions about the origins of earth. Some people just didn't care (those people have probably stopped reading this blog by now).

If you don't know what the LHC is, it is a machine that was built on the Swiss-French border and is designed to smash protons together with cataclysmic force.

The purpose of the experiment is to shed light on many questions in physics.

The BBC reports that, "The first - clockwise - beam completed its first circuit of the underground tunnel at just before 0930 BST. The second - anti-clockwise - beam successfully circled the ring after 1400 BST."

They also said, "[LHC] has not yet announced when it plans to carry out the first collisions, but the BBC understands that low-energy collisions could happen in the next few days. This will allow engineers to calibrate instruments, but will not produce data of scientific interest. Eventually, two proton beams will be steered in opposite directions around the LHC at close to the speed of light, completing about 11,000 laps each second. At allotted points around the tunnel, the beams will cross paths, smashing together near four massive "detectors" that monitor the collisions for interesting events. Scientists are hoping that new sub-atomic particles will emerge, revealing fundamental insights into the nature of the cosmos. "

So far so good, let's just hope this isn't my last blog post about the LHC.