Cern pulls plug on pioneering collider

The Large Electron Positron collider at Cern, the European particle physics laboratory, has been shut down, despite evidence that it could have found the elusive Higgs boson particle.

Recent results had provided potential evidence for the particle, which could allow physicists to explain why the fundamental particles have mass.

This led to a one-month extension to the 11-year-old accelerator, which was due to shut in October to begin construction of its successor, the Large Hadron Collider. However, Cern's management decided that it could not justify running LEP in 2001.