Things could only get better...

At last, there's good news from Switzerland – things are starting to shape up at the Large Hadron Collider. The most expensive science experiment in human history is beginning to pump out some results. Physicist Brian Cox, who spends his days particle hunting at the LHC, has just given me the heads up on what we can expect in the near future.

The first things we're likely to learn more about, he says, are two hefty particles called the Z and W, which were last seen in serious quantities just moments after the Big Bang. Next on the list is a particle with a great sounding name – the top quark. (If you're gonna be a quark, best to be the top one eh?) And finally it's fingers crossed that we'll find new, never-seen-before particles. It's exciting stuff. All with the aim of finding out more about the funamental building blocks that make up everything, including us. For all its supercooled magnets and linear accelerators, the idea behind the LHC is increadibly simple: smash some already small particles together – protons – and see what you get.

Physics has been the realm of theorists for a good while. Now it sounds like we could be getting back to some good old fashioned experimentation. But we're still going to have to be patient. "I don't see new particles turning up for a few years yet unless some of the less likely but easier to see scenarios turn out to be correct," Dr Cox told me.