The Large Hadron Collider: More Symmetries or More Universes? Lawrence J. Hall , Professor of Physics, University of California Berkeley

Particle physics is approaching a threshold: the Large Hadron Collider, which turns on next year, will push the energy frontier by almost an order of magnitude, exploring the TeV energy range. I discuss a wide variety of theoretical speculations of the last 30 years that will be confronted, including supersymmetry, new strong forces, extra spatial dimensions, and environmental selection of vacua. I illustrate how the data could orient the direction for understanding fundamental particle properties for the coming decades, even deciding between paths of ever larger symmetries and environmental selection of rare patches of the multiverse.