Operators of the world's largest atom smasher restarted their massive machine Sunday in a run up to experiments probing secrets of the universe, a spokeswoman said. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, sent low energy beams of protons in both directions around the 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border at Geneva, said Christine Sutton. After a cautious trial period, CERN plans to ramp up the energy of the beams to unprecedented levels and start record-setting collisions of protons by late March, Sutton said. The new collisions are expected to shatter the subatomic particles and reveal still smaller fragments and forces than previously achieved on any collider.
