what a stupid waste of money. god created the earth 4000 years ago. enough said!

I find it sad that, at least in the US, the main story on the LHC was the certain destruction of the Earth as proclaimed (yet, again) by certain people who seem to always claim that the latest accelerator will destroy the world.

The story of the Higg's Boson and it's impact on the world (if found, or the impact of not finding it) is much more interesting. Even the idea that scientists don't all agree with each other is infinitely more educational to the masses than giving voice to a few wacko doomsayers.

Unfortunately, if it doesn't have anything to do with total death and destruction, the main stream media don't think it is appropriate for the masses. I guess that's the new soma.

At least it got a voice here. Hopefully, not everyone thinks as the esteemed writer of the first comment here. Whatever you believe, the discovery of the Higg's Boson (or the lack thereof) will allow mankind to better understand the function of the universe (however created). Think about all the great things Relativity allowed, such as the computer that you're reading this on. The future is bright.

Hold on, the Biblical geneologies put Adam at about 7000 years ago. Our understanding of the speed of light puts the minimum age of the stars we can see at 1 billion years old (light-years). I believe in the accuracy of the Bible, but something is missing from the story. Scientists aren't all idiots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_creationism

Do you mean the Christian idea of Creationism? It's more like six thousand years. I think God created evolution, myself. When I look at the big bang, at the general concept that everything in the universe began by being packed into a point in space, followed by a massive and powerful explosion... I personally see divinity in that.

so the invisable man in the sky created a 4.8 billion year old planet 4000 years ago?
Really wow

please refrain from ever posting your comments again in a scientific topic, you're taking an old book's mangled information for granted without questioning the information and verifying its credibility.

" ...Everything the scientists intended on their to do list was carried out flawlessly and without any surprises..."

WOW. That is an amazing piece of engineering desingn and delivery!!!

It's a truly outstanding accomplishment putting aside all the traditional doomsayers and religious zealots.
What these men have done has shown more than enough promise that we can, in fact, do anything we put our minds to.

If we could just get the politicians to consider the knowledge it takes to evolve science and technology as valuable
before it is processed into nice servings of the newest hardware or software solutions.

Less than 50 years ago Peter Higgs proposed to his colleagues that the existence of a massive scalar particle was the missing link to the question of mass endowment on particles. If this particle exists then we have found the answer to this question and we can move forward in our understanding and on to the next thousand questions.

All we needed to do was to slam some particle beams together and if the collisions are just right, the Higgs Boson may show up ever so faint and briefly within the crowd of other decaying particles. If we find it then we would know why matter has mass. If we do not then we need to look elsewhere.

Simple yet extremely complex and focused. The amazing dedication and accomplishments of thousands of brilliant, underpaid, under-appreciated minds and the development of a whole new science has taken us to this point.

All of this has occurred and our government has kicked in an amount equal to a couple of weeks budget for operation Iraqi Freedom.
Though freedom and the pursuit of tomorrow is a good cause the whole discovery of other dimensions and gravitational shifts, the idea of a unifying particle that may unlock the secrets of our own universe, that could have some uses as well.

But they can't see it without their own math. Polls, budgets, earnings, stocks and so on.

So i say exploit yourself now, scientist. Get Sexy.
Get that pocket protector or calculator sponsor.
Slap a discovered in the USA sticker on that particle and sell it.
These people don't watch the SciFi channel they don't really think science is the future.
Most of them still think that one day, everyone except their own religion will burn in hell,
and they get the prize.

Metal, Concrete, steal, oil, gas, and trash and trash. We are the worst inhabitants this planet has seen. We don't even give our dead back.

The men making the money like winning easy, it's easier; and new is never easy.

I say it's a new era out there. The people are ready. You men and woman are fighting a much more noble battle on the field of life and knowledge.

Just because your smarter and better than most of the money grubbers of the world doesn't mean you cant stop them.
Not stooping to their level is like not cleaning up the dog poo.

Tell them you are on the verge of discovering how to rapidly synthesize a viable oil substitute out ocean water.
Or that you are close to a unifying equation that governs the flow of the stock market.
Get a news station and start warning people of really strong black holes, global warming and how baldness could be a virus.

Then after you spend all the money on saving our planet, our species, and the future. Tell them you had good intelligence and blame it on some else. Or quickly throw in a "did i tell you a black hole could swallow the earth next week, need that budget approved".

Get with the show. You guys would be rolling in the money.
Elections could be focused around who was more prepared to drill for energy from a neighboring dimensions and who could win the war on "Unintelligence".

You forget that in this day and age and empty but well marketed promise is worth a thousand lives.

Haha... ROFL @ Sichas Ruin.... thanks for the laugh! :)... I expect some high profile physics explanation and I see your comment... [ohhh... catches breath].

anyway... my 2 cents worth is this... the Religious Zealots... you are so far gone that your discussion of te matter is not even cared for.

The doomsdayers that think this thing is gunna create a singlet, or a black hole... your wrong too. the thing that makes me so sure of this, is...

The Government, Black Ops, etc... those really in control, and those that have already conducted massive physics experiments behind the scenes and far out of the public eye have not stopped you. I think you guys are going to find that the string theory is verifyable, and its going to benefit the world greatly.

I have to admit, the construction quality and how immaculate the construction of such a LHC... phenominal work guys... it damn hard to line up 17 miles of LHC equipment and the fact that your test went flawlessly.... round of applause from me.

wow, you got issues.

It seems that each time something new and scientific comes along to prove something various religions then come along and change the way that they interpret heir religious teachings so that they fit with it as well.

Personally i think that Red Dwarf had it right, anyone else seen the episode where the original first page of the bible was found?

Newsreader: "Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of Geldof. Archeologists near Mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon-dated in Bonne. If genuine, it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read, "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by church leaders."

They will never find it because it doesn't exist. It just the fabric of space its self. The "aether" as it were. It is not a "particle", it doesn't exist in discrete units. It isn't detectable by any means available to us today. It is the interaction of elementary particles (strings?) with this "aether" that we see as "mass".

This accounts for the missing or "dark matter". It's all there, we just can't see it unless an elementary particle interacts with it in some way.