Collide-a-scope

For a country that cannot produce enough physics teachers to pass on the secrets of the universe to the next generation, it was a pleasant surprise to find the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN was the lead story on yesterday’s news. Things went so smoothly with the switch-on process that it seems the most difficult problem identified so far is whether to pronounce Hadron as “Hay-dron” or “Had-dron” amongst the scientifically illiterate reporters.

Best headline of the day goes to the London Evening Standard for the incontrovertible "World survives 'Big Bang' ". Presumably if the world hadn't survived the switching-on of the LHC, the Standard would have been there to report it - just in case we'd been too busy to notice.