Fundamental.

It takes months for the huge magnets at the LHC to accelerate the ion particle stream to the required speed needed for impact. The 17km ring sees particles looping over 11000 times each second.

CERN is vast and complex It's possible for scientists to collaborate on experiments, and yet never meet: each one's sphere of interest being so niche that another, with equally as singular a focus would simply never physically interact.

On September 9th at precisely 13:47:06, Dr's Adam Strong and Gabriella Forza bumped into one another.

Their collision, they would later tell their grandchildren, was a theoretical improbability.