No doomsday

We're still here, in spite of doomsday talk over this machine!

The world's biggest physics experiment has succeeded in its first major test as a beam of protons was successfully fired all the way around a 17-mile tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border.

The protons traveled the full length Wednesday of the $3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider that scientists hope is the next great step to understand the makeup of the universe. There were a series of trial runs.

Two white dots flashed on a computer screen indicating that the protons reached the final point of the world's largest particle collider.

Scientists hope to see what the components of atoms are made of by smashing them together. The startup had been eagerly awaited by 9,000 physicists around the world who will conduct experiments here.