A view of the InGrid project from the Visitor’s Centre at CERN, which houses talks and footage of the latest CERN developments.Lianna Brinded
A view of the InGrid project from the Visitor’s Centre at CERN, which houses talks and footage of the latest CERN developments.Lianna BrindedThe LHC is set in a 27 km tunnel underground crossing the border between France and Switzerland near Geneva. Atlas is one of the LHC experiments and is the only one housed in Switzerland.Lianna BrindedThis is the central hub where physicists make sure that all data and machines are running smoothly. It also serves as a troubleshooting centre for the experiment.Lianna BrindedVisitors are allowed to have a guided tour around some of the facility by a scientist but are not yet allowed to see the detectors.Lianna BrindedScientists have a creative sense of humour, demonstrated with Post-It notes.Lianna BrindedDon’t forget to check out our exclusive interview with accelerator physicist Barbara Holzer from the LHC Control CentreLianna BrindedThis is the nerve centre for the LHC project, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world. It is designed to combine the control rooms of the Laboratory’s eight accelerators, as well as the piloting of cryogenics and technical infrastructures.Lianna BrindedThe Compact Muon Spectrometer (CMS) experiment at the LHC collider at CERN is on the French side and this is a life-size replica. The original is housed 100 metres underground.Lianna BrindedThe technical capability to collect, store and process data has meant CERN has had to invent a super computing grid to cope with it all. If all data were recorded from just one of the experiments, it would fill 100,000 CDs per second, the equivalent to making 50 billion telephone calls at the same time.Lianna brindedVisitors can be taken 100 metres underground where the CMS is housed, but cannot pass into the area of the detector due to health and safety radiation levels.Lianna Brinded
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is one of the most important places in the world for scientific discovery.
The facility that straddles the Franco-Swiss border is the birthplace of the World Wide Web, and its newest facility, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), is currently the epicentre of the search for the elusive Higgs Boson particle.
If scientists managed to discover the Higgs Boson, it would confirm the Standard Model of particle physics, which lists the fundamental particles that make up the universe and the relationship between them.
CERN scientists are searching for the Higgs Boson using a huge super computer which could itself play a key role in history - many experts believe the machine could inspire a new generation of personal super-computers over the next decade.
Despite this huge significance, CERN could soon be badly hit by funding cuts at European Commission level, as revealed in a previous articleby IBTimes UK.
This slideshow highlights the achievements of CERN, in particular its current pride and joy, the LHC.
