l the LHC live up to our hopes for grand discoveries? No one knows. But even the worst case scenario will tell us that many of the remarkable ideas developed in physics over the past three decades - ideas that have inspired among the best and brightest young minds - may have to be supplanted by even more exciting ideas, yet to be born.
The effort to understand the natural world is not a humble enterprise, and neither should it be. It provides otherwise unimaginable insights that illuminate our brief existence here on this lonely planet.
The LHC is the next immodest step in the noble tradition of unlocking the mysteries of the heavens. That is its ultimate justification.
· Lawrence Krauss is a professor of physics and astronomy at the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio