as the first beam of protons careened at near-light speed around europes $9 billion 17-mile large hadron collider (lhc) near geneva switzerland in the early-morning hours of september 10 so did the hard work and dreams of seven texas a&m university physicists texas a&m experimental physicists teruki kamon david toback alexei safonov and peter mcintyre along with theoretical physicists dimitri nanopoulos bhaskar dutta and richard arnowitt are among the thousands of international scientists whose groundbreaking work went into the worlds most powerful accelerator which scientists believe could help unlock extraordinary discoveries about the nature of the physical universe an estimated 10 000 people from 60 countries helped design and build the accelerator and its massive particle detectors including more than 1 700 scientists engineers students and technicians from 94 us universities and laboratories supported by the united states department of energy (doe) office of science and the national science foundation (nsf) the bulk of the texas a&m groups doe-funded research supports a 12-member team spearheaded by kamon toback and safonov that contributed to the design and construction of one of the lhcs two largest particle detectors the compact muon solenoid (cms) the result of a major collaboration whose us component is headquartered at fermi national accelerator laboratory (fermilab) in illinois in the days and years to come the texas a&m team will play a key role in collecting and analyzing the data collected at the energy frontier this new machine is a huge next step for the entire field of particle physics safonov said its truly a dream machine that may completely change what we think about the world around us and fundamental forces particles and interactions many of our faculty are working on high-energy physics phenomenology string theory and cosmology performing research that either directly relates to lhc physics or will be strongly influenced by what the lhc sees in the years to come mcintyres expertise also went into critical components for the accelerator along with colleagues from stanfords linear accelerator center he continues to provide ongoing accelerator research and development vital to the lhcs future the lhc has the potential to take us full circle to gaze upon nature in microscale as it looked when the matter of the first stars was just emerging from the cosmic furnace of the big bang mcintyre said each step in energy takes us further on that journey; we really dont know what lies ahead or what it might mean for our understanding of nature that is the romance of basic science it also spawns the development of technology that may have benefit for us here on earth as a switch flipped deep in cerns (the european organization for nuclear research) massive underground laboratory and fired off the chain reaction that breathed life into a scientific marvel more than 15 years in the making the texas a&m contingent reveled from afar with the exception of kamon unlike his less fortunate colleagues back in college station kamon along with texas a&m post-doctoral researcher chi nhan nguyen and electronics engineer alexander golyash who are permanently stationed at cern was on the scene near geneva eagerly witnessing global history first-hand at about 10:25 am at cern (roughly 3:35 am in texas) kamon watched as the 21st centurys version of the shot heard round the world zoomed through the tunnel he then dutifully captured the moment as any good scientist would by making an entry in his online logbook hours later kamons exuberance not to mention his purpose at hand was a bit more evident in an electronic missive he sent to the troops waiting back home just exciting kamon noted i have observed two historic moments of high-energy frontier once at the tevatron in 1985 and now at the lhc today i am very happy now we look for dark matter the first circulating beam kamon bore early-morning witness to represents a major accomplishment on the way to the projects ultimate goal: high-energy beams colliding in the centers of the lhcs particle detectors beyond revealing a new world of unknown particles including heavy ones that otherwise could only be seen in the split seconds following the big bang lhc experiments could explain why those particles exist and behave as they do providing valuable clues regarding the origins of mass dark matter and other age-old mysteries of the universe in the process this is a great day for science a great day for physics and a great day for texas a&m toback summarized photos and videos from the lhc first beam day at cern are available at http://wwwcernch/lhc-first-beam information about the us participation in the lhc is available at http://wwwuslhcus -atm- texas a&m physics contacts: teruki kamon: 979-571-5950 or kamon@physicstamuedu (currently on-site in switzerland) david toback: 979-218-7130 or toback@physicstamuedu alexei safonov: 630-650-2078 or safonov@physicstamuedu peter mcintyre: 979-255-5531 or p-mcintyre@physicstamuedu texas a&m media contacts: shana hutchins: 979-862-1237 or shutchins@sciencetamuedu keith randall: 979-845-4644 or keith-randall@tamuedu