The most extensive and expensive scientific instrument in history is due to start working this summer at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva. Two beams of protons will accelerate in opposite directions around a 27km tunnel under the Alpine foothills until they are travelling almost at the speed of light – and then smash together, reproducing on a tiny scale the intense energy of the new-born universe after the inaugural Big Bang 15bn years ago.

As exotic sub-atomic particles spring fleetingly into existence for the first time on Earth, the $8bn Large Hadron Collider or LHC will give thousands of physicists around the world a cornucopia of data with which to create and refine theories about the nature of the universe.