Mischievous baguette-dropping birds be damned! The LHC had another milestone this weekend, as the CMS experiment detected "splash" events.
They're not quite to the promised land yet (even remembering that the beam energies are a lot lower than we eventually want them to be). A little while ago we had beam traveling through the accelerator, which is obviously a big step. These splash events happen when the beam collides into something "upstream," creating a splash of particles that are then detected by the experiment. The big step will be when beams moving in opposite directions actually collide with each other inside the detector. I predict you'll hear soon when that happens. You can follow CMS at its Facebook fan page. 528 fans, I'm sure we can boost that number. I already have a bet with Brian Schmidt that we will fine at least 3-sigma evidence for the Higgs within five years (either at Fermilab or the LHC). Feeling pretty optimistic right now.
