The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will for...

The world"s most powerful atom smasher accelerated its proton beams to 3.5 TeV per beam on March 19, but no collisions were practiced then.

"Between now and March 30, the LHC team will be working with 3.5 TeV beams to commission the beam control systems and the systems that protect the particle detectors from stray particles. All these systems must be fully commissioned before collisions can begin," CERN said.

The LHC is to operate at half its design energy – 7 TeV – until late 2011, after which it will be shut down for about a year to then upgrade to its full design energy of 14 TeV.

"With two beams at 3.5 TeV [each], we"re on the verge of launching the LHC physics program. But we"ve still got a lot of work to do before collisions," CERN"s Director for Accelerators and Technology, Steve Myers, said Tuesday.

"Just lining the beams up is a challenge in itself: it"s a bit like firing needles across the Atlantic and getting them to collide half

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