The Large Hadron Collider.

The construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been a massive endeavour spanning almost 30 years from conception to commissioning. Building the machine with the highest possible energy (7 TeV) in the existing large electron-positron (LEP) collider tunnel of 27 km circumference and with a tunnel diameter of only 3.8 m has required considerable innovation. The first was the development of a two-in-one magnet, where the two rings are integrated into a single magnetic structure. This compact two-in-one structure was essential for the LHC owing to the limited space available in the existing LEP collider tunnel and the cost. The second was a bold move to the use of superfluid helium cooling on a massive scale, which was imposed by the need to achieve a high (8.3 T) magnetic field using an affordable Nb-Ti superconductor.