In tribute to the firing up of the LHC for the first time this week, here is a video of the brilliant Brian Cox explaining just what the LHC does. He's a bright spark, and yet he makes it seem so understandable.This video comes from TED, a yearly conference that distills the essences of scientific progress and thought into interesting and understanding speeches. It is well worth checking out.(via mental_floss)

As you may know, I am a big fan of TED, a conference held each year that focuses on technological and design information that has global impact or probable global impact. Today the Large Hadron Collider is on-line and questions that physisists have been asking about matter and the universe may be answered or create [...]

While we're on particle physics, thought this 2008 TED Talk by Brian Cox about the Large Hadron Collider might be of interest.