Astonishing as it may seem, no major discovery has been made in fundamental physics for a quarter of a century. In that time all the excitement has been with "string theories" - a sea of as yet untestable hypotheses proposed as a way of unifying the forces of nature and explaining the underlying structure of matter. But these exotic suggestions have not advanced what is actually known in particle physics, which essentially has remained the same since the 1970s.
All that might change when the Large Hadron Collider is switched on; but, as Michio Kaku outlined, the big question being discussed in anticipation of recreating the first split-second of the universe is whether the risk involved - of generating a mini black hole or a strangelet particle that could eat the Earth and everything beyond - is worth it.
