On 10th September 2008 seemingly the whole world was watching as the largest machine on the planet, the 27km circumference Large Hadron Collider, was coaxed into life 100m under Geneva. This mammoth project has been 15 years in the making, and despite the early engineering glitch it promises to revolutionise our understanding of how the universe works at the smallest and largest scales, answering questions ranging from how particles acquire mass to why galaxies rotate as fast as they do. In his presentation Professor Tovey will give a whistle-stop tour of the LHC and the giant experiments which observe its collisions; outline the motivations behind their construction; and highlight the key role in the project played by Sheffield scientists.

Dan Tovey is a Professor of Particle Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield. His research interests are listed as supersymmetry searches with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, and grid computing.