Meticulous magnetism

The LHC uses magnets to curve the particle beam around the tunnel.

'There are more than a thousand of these magnets, each one 14 metres long. Half the cost of the whole project was spent on them.' Nick Chohan, particle accelerator expert.

Another type of magnet focuses the beam to the smallest size possible. This happens just before the beam enters a detector so that the particles are densely packed and more likely to smash into other particles when the two beams meet.