LHC: go for injection!

Tonight, at 03:30 Eastern (US) time, the world will not end. That's when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) turns on. The world won't end for two reasons. Well three. The first is it didn't end the night before, or the night before that, and so on for several billion nights past, so odds are pretty good it won't end tonight. Historically, it's the way to bet. The second reason is that the LHC cannot -- C A N N O T -- do anything to destroy the world. It can't make eensy black holes, or quark nuggets, or anything like that. If someone tells you otherwise, they're wrong. We've been over this. Don't make me turn this thing around. The third reason is that what's going to happen tonight is that protons will be injected into the accelerator proper for the first time. They will be constrained and accelerated by ...