By Jennifer Ouellette

Take that, Fermilab! This seems to be the underlying message of yesterday’s BBC News article announcing that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland has smashed the record for most particle collisions, doubling the previous rate to reach about 10,000 particle collisions per second. More collisions means that many more opportunities to observe interesting new physics. And while Fermilab still holds the record for highest beam intensity at its Tevatron collider, the LHC’s collision rate leaves the poor aging machine in the dust. Boo-yah!

Maybe it’s payback for all the news Fermilab has been generating over the last month or so, including the possibility of not one, but five different Higgs bosons. The two facilities have a friendly scientific rivalry going, to be sure, and let’s face it: the Tevatron would dearly love to beat the LHC to the Higgs, just to prove that size isn’t everything.

“It’s clear that the LHC is the new boy in town, but in two years running we’re going to put Fermilab out of business,” the article quotes operation group leader Mike Lamont as boasting. (And who knew the LHC was male?) Sounds like a throw-down to me. And clearly, the clock is ticking.

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