Large Hadron Collider comes to London

Science Museum’s new exhibition 

The hottest place on Earth Warning sign Detail of one of the many whiteboards and pinboards in the exhibition Cross section of an important part, but don’t ask me which A moment in time The Collider remined me of a stained glass rose windown in a cathedral Cartoon Wanted: Schrödinger’s Cat, dead and alive Higgs boson’s place in the puzzle The champagne bottle that popped when the news came in Shadows on the way back to the Tube

Elaine and I made our way across to the Science Museum this morning for a relatively early start — and a private tour of the Large Hadron Collider exhibition. Stunningly interesting and, in places, beautiful. One of the most fascinating exhibitions I have ever visited and a wonderful introduction to some of the very human sides of this great exploration into the very essence of the universe, alongside the mind-boggling science.

We had missed the discussion between novelist Ian McEwan and physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed, and the sessions with Peter Higgs and Stephen Hawking, but I emerged from the museum feeling that the world was illuminated in new ways — a sensation aided and abetted by the angle at which the late autumn sun was intersecting our mid-November reality.