> But yeah, experiments, especially nowadays, are to prove theories, not to push breakthroughs - in fact, given the higgs boson was already theorized, science c

> But yeah, experiments, especially nowadays, are to prove theories, not to push breakthroughs - in fact, given the higgs boson was already theorized, science could already use it. Not sure what the LHC added to that besides proving it exists. Theory verification is a very important part of physics. For example lots of people who work in string theory write down lots of crazy theories of how physics looks beyond the standard model. Perhaps they are all wrong, but we currenly have nothing better. So we would really love to have any currently experimentally viable way with which we were able to check these theories. Thanks to LHC we could do this at least for the Higgs boson. Before this experiment the Higgs boson was also "just a crazy theory that was able to resolve a hole in the standard model".