Since 2008 scientists have conducted experiments in a hyperenergized 17mile supercollider beneath the border of France and Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider or what scientists call ampquotthe LHCampquot is one of the wonders of the modern worlda highly sophisticated scientific instrument designed to recreate in miniature the conditions of the universe as they existed in the microseconds following the big bang. Among many notable LHC discoveries one led to the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for revealing evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson the socalled God particle.Picking up where he left off in The Quantum Frontier physicist Don Lincoln shares an insideramp39s account of the LHCamp39s operational history and gives readers everything they need to become well informed on this marvel of technology.Writing about the LHCamp39s early days Lincoln offers keen insight into an accident that derailed the operation nine days after the collideramp39s 2008 debut. A faulty solder joint started a chain reaction that caused a massive explosion damaged 50 superconducting magnets and vaporized large sections of the conductor. The crippled LHC lay dormant for over a year while technical teams repaired the damage.Lincoln devotes an entire chapter to the Higgs boson and Higgs field using several extended analogies to help explain the importance of these concepts to particle physics. In the final chapter he describes what the discovery of the Higgs boson tells us about our current understanding of basic physics and how the discovery now keeps scientists awake over a nagging inconsistency in their favorite theory.As accessible as it is fascinating The Large Hadron Collider reveals the inner workings of this masterful achievement of technology along with the mindblowing discoveries that will keep it at the center of the scientific frontier for the foreseeable future.