In 2012, particle accelerators hit the headlines when researchers at CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs boson. This breakthrough discovery resulted from decades of research and experimentation and billions of dollars of investment, with the large hadron collider (LHC) representing the world’s largest scientific collaboration to date. The LHC is the world’s largest high energy particle accelerator, comprising of a main beamline almost thirty kilometers in circumference and a multi-story complex containing a multitude of bespoke vacuum systems and particle detectors. Researchers at CERN use the LHC to study high energy particle collisions with the hope of gaining insights into the fundamental laws of physics.