Pier Oddone, Fermilab's boss, plans to follow it with the Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE), which will send a yet-more intense beam of the particles to an underground laboratory in South Dakota.

ECONOMIST: The future of physics (1)

This fireball, which lasts just 10 million, billion, billionths of a second, can be detected because it absorbs jets of particles produced by the beam collisions.

BBC: Artist's representation of a black hole,

The tractor beam is very selective in the properties of the particles it acts on, so you could pick up specific particles in a mixture.

BBC: Star Trek style 'tractor beam' created by scientists

Directed energy (DE) is an umbrella term covering technologies that produce a beam of concentrated electromagnetic energy or atomic or subatomic particles as a direct means to damage or destroy adversary equipment, facilities, and personnel.

FORBES: U.S. Navy Pioneers Next-Gen Electric Weaponry

Will there ever come a time when actual people, rather than just the particles of which they are made up, will be able to beam from one place to another?

CNN: Beam me up: Just how close are we to teleportation?