Scientists from around the world, including several from UW-Madison, on Monday were anxiously awaiting what could be a historic period of discovery about the nature of our universe at the 17-mile-long particle collider in Europe. Early Tuesday, the researchers who have been speeding particles around the Large Hadron Collider LHC, a $10 billion underground loop of steel and magnets near the Swiss-French border, were to take their next step toward answering crucial and puzzling questions about the nature of our physical world.