Big Bang experiment goes on, proves rumours wrong

8220;There are two emotions, the pleasure of completing a great task and the hope of great discoveries ahead of us,8221; said CERN Director General Robert Aymar.

The giant accelerator8217;s first task is to send a particle beam in one direction around its 27-km 17-mile circumference, and then one in the other direction to test if the path is clear.

In the coming weeks beams will be sent in both directions simultaneously to create high-speed collisions.

Scientists around the world are eagerly anticipating data on those minuscule crashes. One possibility is that they will cause the creation of matter 8212; proving correct the theory that there exists a 8216;Higgs Boson8217; that gives matter its mass.

Doomsday writers have also fanned fears that the experiment could create anti-matter, or black holes, spurring unprecedented public interest in particle physics ahead of the machine8217;s start-up. CERN has insisted that such concerns are unfounded and that the Large Hadron Collider is safe.