Anyone wondering what today’s Google logo was all about: first beams at the Large Hadron Collider. Cosmic Variance was live-blogging the startup, making for some tense internetting lasting almost 5 hours. There were no collisions today, but a full beam of protons was successfully sent around the monstrous machine, officially marking the beginning of operations for the LHC. This is exciting!

1:12 am (PDT), JoAnne: The beam is at Point 8, which is 3/4 of the way around! Thanks to SkyNews for the feed!

1:18 am (PDT), JoAnne: Now the beam is at ATLAS, 7/8 of the way through. They are giving ATLAS some events (not collisions, but beam halo and beam gas). Lyn Evans, LHC project manager, was heard to say that he’s going to win his bet, whatever that is.

1:23 am (PDT), JoAnne: BEAM! We have BEAM! All the way round! Now they’re doing it again.

I love the internet!

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