LHC produces first collisions

For the ones that are relieved to know that the LHC didn't cause the armagedon, I must tell you that we are in the parallel universe that survived. At most one of our parallel universe was obliterated.<p>Don't beleive the <i>no parallel universes were damaged during the LHC's collisions</i> sticker you can see at CERN laboratories.

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I understand that the LHC will help answer some physics questions, but is all this expense and effort going to contribute to any practical technology gains? Will it help us find new energy sources? What will we actually get out of it??

Gah! They're going to run it for a year at 3.5TEV and then shut it down, why? if they've fixed the magnet problem from last year why can't they go full force now?

It's the end of the world as we know it<p>and I feel fine