Those scarily brilliant people at CU Boulder know what’s up when it comes to physics. Ten CU Boulder researchers are working on the Large Hadron Collider project, of the Large Hadron Collider rap fame. Today the LHC, a particle accelerator, was successfully activated, and soon it’s gonna show scientists what the Big Bang was like.

The CU Boulder website brags:

A group of University of Colorado at Boulder physics department faculty and students involved in the Large Hadron Collider project are expecting some big surprises following the successful activation of the world's brawniest particle accelerator near Geneva this morning.

About 10 CU-Boulder researchers are working on the Large Hadron Collider project, or LHC, which will send protons and charged atoms whizzing around a 17-mile underground loop located on the border of France and Switzerland at 11,000 times per second -- nearly the speed of light. Located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research facility known as CERN, the collider will smash particles together at energy levels seven times higher than the previous record by such accelerators.

The scientists will use the LHC to attempt to recreate conditions immediately following the Big Bang, searching for answers about mysterious dark matter, dark energy, gravity and the fundamental laws of physics. The experiments may even shed light on the possibility that other dimensions exist, according to physicists.

Protons. Atoms. Dark matter. Dark energy. It’s all a bit mysterious really. But soon, maybe it’ll be like white bread if these Large Hadron Collider people have their way. Then we can feel really smart.