the particles on which they act.

During the 1960s, physicists claimed to have unified two of the fundamental cosmic forces: ­ electromagnetism and the so-called weak nuclear force. And in the early 1980s, physicists at the same European lab responsible for the LHC triumphantly confirmed the theory using a much smaller machine.

Yet despite all the high hopes, grand claims and portentous TV documentaries, the search for the ToE has been in the doldrums ever since. There has been no shortage of theories, but an abject lack of hard evidence for any of them.

Physicists are hoping and ­ praying ­ the LHC will give them what they crave: contact with the real world. They hope it will reveal the existence of the so-called Higgs particle, which they need to explain the existence of mass.

They also hope it will confirm the existence of something called supersymmetry, a key feature of attempts to create a ToE.

But the smart money is on the LHC turning up something utterly unexpected, which leaves physicists more baffled than ever. And that would be game over, as the world's governments are not likely to stump up yet more billions for this kind of stuff.

After all, we need physicists to address some slightly more pressing questions than whether supersymmetry is part of God's design - like how in God's name do we save the planet from climate change?
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Robert Matthews is Visiting Reader in Science at Aston University, Birmingham