Milestone

It's very exciting to hear that the LHC has exceeded the "10³²" milestone already. While this is an important step on the way to the luminosity goals for the first two years at the LHC, it's particularly important as a step on the way to...heavy ions (collisions of fully-stripped lead ions) at the LHC.

This is not exactly for technical reasons, per se. Instead, the LHC heavy ion program was scheduled to happen only if the LHC reached 10³² this year. If they didn't then it was always possible that the program would be shortened, or even cancelled (chilling as that seemed). Fortunately this did not happen, so onward we go into November! See you all at CERN.