Over the last few years, particle physics has been the science subject on everyone’s lips, with the probable discovery of a Higgs boson this summer the icing on the expensive, but ultimately enthralling, cake.
Adding to the glamour of rigorous study of particles unimaginably small and hard to pin down, Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner has taken it upon himself to award multi-million dollar prizes for scientists working in the field.
The New York Times reports that one of his latest prizes, worth $3 million, has been dedicated to the groups working at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, including the particle detectors Atlas and CMS.