After almost a year of wrangling over finances, 19 European nations have agreed to build the Large Hadron Collider (IHC). Unbelievable though it may sound, the us $1.6 billion research machine, to be located at Geneva in a 27 km doughnut-shaped tunnel under the French-Swiss border, will enable scientists to recreate the conditions that existed when the universe was just formed.

Britain and Germany were concerned about the collider's financial arrangements for a long time. Pressure had built up on France and Switzerland to cough up a premium, since they were supposed to reap greater benefits from the lhc. Under the new deal, announced in mid-December 1994, the project will go ahead in 2 stages, first out of the Geneva-based European Laboratory for Particle Physic's present funding, and then with France and Switzerland shelling out more.