cern collider tours

CERN Accelerating science

Tours for families and individual visitors

If you visit on your own, with your family or friends our daily guided tours are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Connect to our exclusive web app when arriving at Science Gateway to check guided tour availabilites and to register.

Discover CERN’s first accelerator, the synchrocyclotron, installed back in 1957 . Learn about the most important moments of CERN’s history and how the Laboratory became a model for international collaboration. Real objects from a typical workplace reconstruct life at CERN in the late 1950s, when computers and digital cameras didn’t exist.  Wonder at the beautiful 3D video mapping that brings the synchrocyclotron back to life! 

Have you ever heard of the Higgs boson? Its discovery in 2012, at CERN, completed the theory that explains the visible Universe around us, and led to a Nobel prize. Learn more about this fascinating particle, about the research and the people behind its discovery on a guided tour of the control centre of the ATLAS experiment, one of the two experiments at CERN that discovered the Higgs boson . Navigate through an interactive exhibition and look in on physicists who take shifts 24h/7 in the control room. 

For more information on how to book a guided tour for yourself, your family or your friends, read here . 

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How to Visit the Large Hadron Collider

Last Updated: April 7, 2024 Approved

This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff . Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 81% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 84,590 times. Learn more...

The Large Hadron Collider is located in CERN on the Switzerland-French border. Most of the time, you can only visit the above ground facilities, and the Large Hadron Collider is located underground. However, once in a while, they do shut the collider down and open the area to the public, so you'll be able to visit that area. If you can't visit during that time, you'll still find plenty to see at other times of the year.

Booking a Tour

• The best thing you can do is call the reception desk at +41 (0)22 767 76 76 or email them at [email protected] to find out when the EYETS are.

• You can call +41 (0)22 767 76 76 or email them at [email protected] to find out about closures.
• Tours last for about 3 hours apiece.

• If you are reserving spots for more than 11 people, you'll need to reserve a group tour. You can make a reservation for up to 48 people, using the form on the website.

• Only 12 to 48 people can visit at once, including teachers and students. The tours are free. In general, students must be 13 and older. H
• Any teacher can fill out the reservation form online. You'll need information like the number of people attending, contact information, your preferred language, and the preferred date.

Taking Your Tour

• Pets should also be left behind.

• Also contact them if you have anyone under 16 in your group.

Taking Full Advantage of Your Tour

• You'll begin by visiting reception at 385 route de Meyrin, CH-1217 Meyrin - Geneva, Switzerland.

• Smoking is not allowed anywhere at CERN. [4] X Research source

• The permanent exhibits are both near reception.

• In the souvenir shop, you'll find things like pins, pencils, stickers, hoodies, hard hats, notebooks, umbrellas, and a wide variety of other paraphernalia.
• You can use credit cards at the souvenir shop.

Community Q&A

• Visit virtually. If you can't make it to Switzerland, you can take a virtual tour of CERN on the BBC's site at http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35780444/ . Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ https://home.cern/cern-people/updates/2017/03/eyets-report-cool-preparation-lhc
• ↑ http://www.stfc.ac.uk/research/particle-physics-and-particle-astrophysics/cern/visit-cern/
• ↑ https://indico.cern.ch/event/717796/attachments/1623596/2703313/Code_of_conduct_for_visitors_to_CERN_EN.pdf
• ↑ https://visit.cern/safety

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Visiting CERN – 11 Tips That Will Help You Make the Most of the Hadron Collider Tour

• By Traveling Anne
• February 28, 2024
• In Europe Travel Destinations

As promised in my French Alps trip report , here's a more detailed review of our excellent visit to CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. There are several tips I want to share as well, about what we did right and what we could have done better.  Read through if you are thinking of visiting CERN so you can make the most of your time there.

What is CERN all about?

You may occasionally see the name Cern, not as an acronym. It's not the name of a town or a village though. Rather, it's an acronym for a long title in French:  Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire.  Which translates into: The European council for nuclear research. I will be using CERN and Cern interchangeably throughout this post because these days it's both a place and a concept.

The council was established back in 1954 in an effort to promote scientific collaboration between the nations of Europe, at the time still licking their proverbial and literal wounds of the second world war. They were allocated an area near Geneva where the CERN project was established on (and under) the ground. The name of the initiative has since changed into the  European Organization for Nuclear Research but it's still known as Cern (and not as EONR, thankfully).

There have been many amazing discoveries made in CERN over the years, some of which have lead to nobel prizes in physics and chemistry. It is best known for its huge particle collider, aka the Hadron Collider.

There are several underground looped tunnels where sub-atomic particles are accelerated in phases and then enter the largest loop of all: the Hadron collider. Beams of particles are made to smash into one another at specific stations within the collider and the results are recorded to be further analyzed by scientists across the globe. It really is an amazing feat of human ingenuity. That makes visiting CERN an uplifting experience for all, not just science buffs.

Visiting CERN: Can you actually visit the Hadron Collider?

Yes and no. You can visit Cern and be above the collider. The main road which runs through the main complex that surrounds the main research station - known as The Atlas Project - is open to the public. There is a visitors center there which includes two permanent exhibitions -

Microcosm - The story of collider and how it works, as well as a little bit about what life in Cern is for the 10,000+ scientists and engineers who work there.

In addition to the exhibitions, there is a guided tour that takes you "behind the scenes". I have seen photos of people wearing helmets and looking at what appears to be part of the collider. During our own visit, the guide explained that they do not take visitors down to the collider because the levels of radiation there are not safe.

So, no, we did not get to see the actual collider. We did get to see several models and hear a LOT about it. Considering its actual size (about 27 kilometers long!) I don't see how you can actually "see" more than a very small part of it going underground. Either way, you can't see it "working". According to our guide (who was also a physicist and a shift leader at Cern) there's not much to be seen. The particle beam is silent and invisible.

Who should be visiting CERN?

Cern is a must-visit for anyone who loves science and specifically physics. The exhibitions are thorough and our guide was a professional physicist who could answer all of the questions thrown at him by our group's science buffs.

Even if you're not into physics, I think the tour would be enjoyable. The exhibitions are interactive and exciting and there is something very moving about the entire project: European nations working together to promote science and peace.

And finally...

11 quick tips that will help you make the most of your visit

1. book the tour.

The tour is entirely free and it gets you that unique "behind the scenes" look into the project. Our guide was fascinating and it was really cool to walk past these gates:

The tour also takes you to a special exhibition with a 20 minutes long multimedia show projected on the walls and on the equipment around you. Really cool and great fun for kids.

2. Guided tours fill up really fast

They open up for registration 15 days ahead of the date, in the morning (Switzerland time) and as far as I could see, registration closes within a couple of hours. They re-open three days ahead of the date for latecomers and I guess if there are no-shows, you can try and wriggle your way into a group.

3. Be prepared to take pictures on the guided tour

With all the fences and guards, we thought they may ask us not to take pictures. Quite the opposite. Our guide said they want us to take as many pictures as possible! Keep your camera ready during the tour because photo-ops pop up literally as you walk around while visiting CERN. Like taking pictures of street signs -

4. Be prepared for a long visit

This isn't a place you can run through in 20 minutes. The exhibitions alone are well-worth 1-2 hours (possibly longer if you are interested in physics). The tour takes up another two hours of your time. All in all, three hours is the bare minimum. We spent five hours at Cern and could have stayed for longer if we had more time.

5. Check for opening hours

There are different opening hours for the exhibitions. The visitors center and the Microcosm exhibition open at 8:30. The Universe Of Particles opens at 10. There are several time slots for the guided tours. Check your times and make sure you allocate at least an hour for each exhibition and 2 hours for the tour (including showing up 15 minutes in advance to get your badges). The good news is that everything is close-by, so it only takes a couple of minutes to get from one exhibition to the other.

6. Bring your own food

Google maps knows of a couple of cafeterias at Cern which we had planned on checking out. Nothing quite like enjoying a croissant while rubbing shoulders with a local version of Sheldon Cooper, right? I thought this would add to our "Visiting CERN" experience.

As it happens, these cafeterias are out of bounds for us mere mortals. The only way to get a coffee or any food is at the local gas station. It's very close to the visitors center, so not a long walk, but the prices are quite Swiss (i.e. expensive!) and the food quality is nothing to write home about - basically what you'd expect to find in a gas station store. They do have a really cool espresso machine that generates so much steam while making your coffee, you might think they're running it through the Hadron collider itself!

7. Eat and drink before the tour

If you didn't bring anything to eat, grab something - anything - at that gas station. The tour isn't short and you can't eat or drink anywhere during the tour. You also can't leave the tour once you started because you have to be accompanied by the guide when inside Cern. So -especially if you're traveling with kids - make sure everyone is well fed before you start the tour.

8. Wear comfortable shoes and dress according to the weather

The guided tour has you walking about one mile on foot. Not too bad but enough to be more enjoyable with comfortable shoes. You will be walking outside for a short bit as well, so if it looks like it might rain, gear up accordingly.

9. Park near the big dome

There's plenty of parking, or at least there was on the day of our visit, but you can't just park anywhere. The best place for you to park would be next to the big brown dome. Just east of the dome, towards the Swiss side of Cern, there is a big parking lot that's free to park at.

10. Watch a movie about the project before visiting CERN

I wanted to get our kids acquainted with Cern before we came and to be honest, I didn't know a whole lot about it other than that's where they had recently discovered the Boson-Higgs and that people were afraid they might create a black hole in the process, swallowing up the entire earth (which turned up to be a slight exaggeration).

The movie we watched was available on Netflix. It's called "Particle Fever" and you can buy or rent it on Amazon too .

11. Don't worry about the language barrier

Cern is technically in both Switzerland and France (the border runs in the middle) but everyone there speaks English. More importantly, the exhibitions all have English labels or English narration options and the guided tour is available in English. That's not something you typically find in French science (or other) museums so it's worth mentioning here.

And one last tip...

12. Have fun!

Visiting CERN is fun! There's a lot of humor to be found in the exhibitions. Lots of red buttons to push and see whether you actually create a black hole that can swallow up the entire earth. It hasn't happened to us but who knows, you might just get lucky!

Have you ever visited Cern? Got any tips to add? Please share those in the comments section below. You can also leave me questions about visiting CERN and I'll try and give you the best answer I can.

Awesome tips i will give 5 out of 5 stars for these tips i totally loved it.❤

Thank you so much, Asher!

Is it possible to use photo in the chapter 3? I am writing a post for students and schoolchildren and I need photo like that.

Check your email 🙂 I sent you an email with a couple of questions so we can take it from there.

Thanks for the info. Our rental auto does not permit us to drive into Switzerland. Do you know if there is ample free car parking on the French side and we can just walk 5 minutes to Reception?

Hi Paul, I couldn’t find the answer on their website so I emailed Francois Briard, head of CERN’s Visits center who has visited and commented on this post before 🙂 He was very prompt and helpful but unfortunately the answer is that there is no available parking space on the French side that’s within walking distance from the visitors center. He added that you shouldn’t count on parking by the side of the road because French commuters have these filled up by 8AM. His suggestion was to get bus Y line from Saint-Genis-Pouilly and that can drop you at the CERN bus stop. I hope this helps! Enjoy your visit to CERN!

Thanks for the very accurate and useful tips! Our website has been rebranded a bit giving even more information.

François, head of CERN’s Visits Service 😉

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, François! I’m glad you liked my post!

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The Large Hadron Collider: Inside CERN's atom smasher

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's biggest particle accelerator.

• What is the LHC?
• LHC discoveries and history

Run 3: What to expect

• How does the LHC work?
• LHC experiments

LHC and the Higgs boson

Cern's many experiments, beyond the large hadron collider, q&a with cern scientist clara nellist, additional resources, bibliography.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the biggest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world. It is located at the European particle physics laboratory CERN, in Switzerland. 

The LHC restarted on April 22, 2022, after three years of maintenance work and upgrades. Run 3 is expected to commence on July, 5, a day after the 10-year anniversary of the Higgs boson discovery.

Scientists use the LHC to test theoretical predictions in particle physics, particularly those associated with the "Standard Model". While the Standard Model can explain almost all results in particle physics there are some questions left unanswered such as what is dark matter and dark energy ? Why is there more matter than antimatter? The LHC is designed to help answer such questions. 

The LHC can reproduce the conditions that existed within a billionth of a second of the Big Bang . The colossal accelerator allows scientists to collide high-energy subatomic particles in a controlled environment and observe the interactions. One of the most significant LHC breakthroughs came in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs Boson. 

Related: The Higgs boson could have kept our universe from collapsing  

If you see a news headline about exotic new subatomic particles, the chances are the discovery was made at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, located near Geneva in Switzerland. 

A recent example occurred in January 2022, when CERN scientists announced " evidence of X particles in the quark-gluon plasma produced in the Large Hadron Collider." Hiding behind that technospeak is the eye-popping fact that CERN succeeded in recreating a situation that hasn't occurred naturally since a few microseconds after the Big Bang. 

When Run 3 commences we can expect a whole new spate of discoveries, so it's a good time to take a closer look at what makes the LHC — and the rest of CERN — so unique.

What is the Large Hadron Collider?

The LHC is a particle accelerator — a device that boosts subatomic particles to enormous energies in a controlled way so that scientists can study the resulting interactions, according to the CERN LHC fact sheet . The 'large' that the L stands for is an understatement; the LHC is by far the biggest accelerator in the world right now, occupying a circular tunnel nearly 17 miles (27 kilometers) in circumference. The middle letter, H, stands for 'hadron', the generic name for composite LHC particles such as protons that are made up of smaller particles called quarks. Finally, the C stands for 'collider' — the LHC accelerates two particle beams in opposite directions, and all the action takes place when the beams collide. 

Like all physics experiments, the LHC aims to test theoretical predictions — in this case, the so-called Standard Model of particle physics — and see if there are any holes in them. As strange as it sounds, physicists are itching to find a few holes in the Standard Model because there are some things, such as dark matter and dark energy, that can't be explained until they do. 

Large Hadron Collider discoveries and history

The LHC's biggest moment came in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs boson . Although widely referred to as the "God particle", it's not really as awesome in itself as that name might suggest. Its huge significance came from the fact that it was the last prediction of the Standard Model that hadn't yet been proven. But the Higgs boson is far from being the LHC's only discovery. 

According to the physics magazine CERN Courier , the LHC has also found around 60 previously unknown hadrons, which are complex particles made up of various combinations of quarks. Even so, all those new particles still lie within the bounds of the Standard Model, which the LHC has struggled to move beyond , much to the disappointment of the numerous scientists who have spent their careers working on alternative theories. 

Related: 10 mind-boggling things you should know about quantum physics

The first tantalizing hints that a breakthrough might be just around the corner came in 2021 when analysis of LHC data revealed patterns of behavior that indicated small but definite departures from the Standard Model. 

According to CERN, the LHC opened for business in 2009, but CERN's history goes back much further than that. The organization was established in 1954 following a recommendation by the European Council for Nuclear Research — or Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire in French, from which it gets its name. Between its creation and the opening of the LHC, CERN was responsible for a series of groundbreaking discoveries, including weak neutral currents, light neutrinos and the W and Z bosons. As soon as the LHC is back up and running, we can expect discoveries to continue. 

As the name suggests, Run 3 is the third science run of the LHC and will begin on July 5, 2022. It will build on LHC's discoveries made during its Run 1 (2009-2013) and Run 2 (2015 to 2018) and perform experiments through 2024. 

On the precipice of new physics, scientists are keen to make use of the LHC's new upgrades to investigate the Higgs boson, explore dark matter and potentially expand our understanding of the standard model, the leading theory describing all known fundamental forces and elementary particles in the universe.

With the new upgrades, CERN has increased the power of the LHC's injectors, which feed beams of accelerated particles into the collider. At the time of the previous shutdown in 2018, the collider could accelerate beams up to an energy of 6.5 teraelectronvolts, and that value has been raised to 6.8 teraelectronvolts, according to a statement from CERN .

For reference, a single teraelectronvolt is equivalent to 1 trillion electron volts (an electron volt, a unit of energy, is equivalent to the work done on an electron accelerating through the potential of one volt.)

To increase the energy of the proton beams to such an extreme level, "the thousands of superconducting magnets, whose fields direct the beams around their trajectory, need to grow accustomed to much stronger currents after a long period of inactivity during LS2 ," the same CERN statement read. Getting the equipment up to speed in this upgrade is a process that CERN calls "magnet training" and which is made up of about 12,000 individual tests.

With LHC's magnets "trained" and the proton beams more powerful than ever, the LHC will be able to create collisions at higher energies than ever before, expanding the possibilities for what scientists using the upgraded equipment might find.

Once Run 3 concludes in 2024, CERN scientists will shut it down for another planned overhaul that will include more upgrades for the massive particle accelerator. Once complete, those upgrades will allow scientists to rename LHC the "High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider" once it reopens in 2028.

How does the Large Hadron Collider work?

As huge as it is, the LHC can't function without the help of other machines around it. Before particles, which are usually protons but for some experiments are much heavier lead ions, are injected into it, they're passed through a chain of smaller accelerators that progressively boost their speed, according to a CERN LHC report . Smaller is just a relative term; the last step in the injector chain, the Super Proton Synchrotron, is almost 4.3 miles in circumference (6.9 km). The result is two beams traveling in opposite directions around the LHC at virtually the speed of light , according to CERN . 

The beams are kept on their circular trajectories by a strong magnetic field, which has the effect of bending the path of electrically charged particles. At four points around the LHC's vast ring, the opposing beams are brought together and made to collide, and that's where all the science happens. 

 – Phantom energy and dark gravity: Explaining the dark side of the universe

– Dark stars: The first stars in the universe

– Tachyons: Facts about these faster-than-light particles  

Particles are smashed together with such enormous energies that the collisions create a cascade of new particles — most of them extremely short-lived. The important thing for scientists is to work out what all these particles are, and that's not an easy task. 

The LHC has an array of sophisticated particle detectors for this purpose, each made up of layers of subdetectors designed to measure certain particle properties or to look for specific types of particles. For example, calorimeters measure a particle's energy, while the curving track of a particle in a magnetic field reveals information about its electric charge and momentum.

Two of the four collision points around the circumference of the LHC are occupied by large general-purpose detectors. These include the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) , which can be thought of as a giant 3D camera, snapping images of particles up to 40 million times per second. 

The paths of the particles inside the detector are controlled by a gigantic electromagnet called a solenoid. Despite weighing 12,500 metric tons, it's quite compact, as the detector's name suggests. That middle word, muon, refers to an elusive particle similar to the electron but much more massive, which requires its array of subdetectors wrapped around the solenoid. 

The LHC's other general-purpose detector, ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC Apparatus) , has an identical purpose to CMS but differs in the design of its detection, subsystems and magnets. It's also less compact than CMS, occupying a greater volume than any other particle detector ever built.  

Large Hadron Collider experiments

Many of the LHC's most important experiments, including the discovery of the Higgs boson, utilize the general-purpose detectors ATLAS and CMS. But it also has several other more specialized detectors that can be used in specific types of experiments. 

The LHC forward (LHCf) detector , located close to the ATLAS interaction point, uses particles thrown forward in collisions as a means of simulating cosmic rays under laboratory conditions. Further, along the beam trajectory is the Forward Search Experiment (FASER) , designed to look for light, weakly interacting particles that are likely to elude the larger detectors. 

A third experiment optimized for the forward direction is Total Elastic and diffractive cross-section Measurement (TOTEM) , located near the CMS interaction point, which focuses on the physics of the high-energy protons themselves. 

Away from ATLAS and CMS, the LHC has two other interaction points. One is occupied by A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) , a specialized detector for heavy-ion physics. The final interaction point is home to two experiments on the very cutting edge of physics: LHCb , devoted to the physics of the exotic 'beauty quark', and MoEDAL — the Monopole and Exotics Detector at the LHC. 

According to CERN, when physicists come up with new theories, they always try to make sure they can be tested experimentally. That happened in the early 1960s when Peter Higgs and others developed a theory to explain why certain force-carrier particles have non-zero mass. 

The theory predicted the existence of a previously unsuspected particle, dubbed the Higgs boson. The next step was to find the Higgs boson and thus validate the theory. As simple as that sounds, it led to a decades-long hunt around the world. The end finally came in 2012, when data from the LHC — specifically, from a combination of ATLAS and CMS measurements — proved beyond doubt that the Higgs boson had been discovered.

One of the key mysteries of the universe is the striking asymmetry between matter and antimatter — why it contains so much more of the former than the latter. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe must have started with equal amounts of both. Yet very early on, probably within the first second, virtually all the antimatter had disappeared, and only the normal matter we see today was left. This asymmetry has been given the technical name 'CP violation', and studying it is one of the main aims of the Large Hadron Collider's LHCb experiment. 

All hadrons are made up of quarks, but LHCb is designed to detect particles that include a particularly rare type of quark known as 'beauty'. Studying CP violation in beauty-containing particles is one of the most promising ways to shed light on the emergence of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the early universe.

Hunting exotic particles

Sharing the same underground cavern as LHCb is a smaller instrument called MoEDAL, which stands for "Monopole and Exotics Detector at the LHC". While most CERN experiments are designed to study known particles, this one is aimed at discovering hitherto unknown ones that lie outside the present Standard Model. A monopole, for example, would be a magnetized particle consisting only of a north pole without a south one, or vice versa. Such particles have long been hypothesized, but never observed. 

The purpose of MoEDAL is to look out for any monopoles that might be created in collisions inside the LHC. It could also potentially detect certain "stable massive particles" that are predicted by theories beyond the Standard Model. If it's successful in finding any of these particles, MoEDAL could help to resolve fundamental questions such as the existence of other dimensions or the nature of dark matter.

Climate science

Away from the LHC, there are other facilities at CERN that are doing equally important research. Linking particle physics to climate science may not be an obvious step, yet that's what one experiment is doing at CERN's Proton Synchrotron. This is a smaller and less sophisticated accelerator than the LHC, but it's still capable of doing useful work. 

The climate experiment is called CLOUD, which gives a strong hint of what it's about, although the name stands for Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets . Earth is under constant bombardment by cosmic rays, and it's been theorized that these play a role in cloud formation by seeding tiny water droplets. It isn't an easy process to study in the real atmosphere with real cosmic rays, so CERN is creating its own cosmic rays with the accelerator. These are then fired into an artificial atmosphere, where their effects can be studied much more closely. 

Making antimatter

Antimatter often pops into existence inside CERN’s high-energy accelerators, as one-half of a particle-antiparticle pair. But in the usual course of events, the antiparticles don’t last long before they’re annihilated in collisions with ordinary particles.

If you want to create antimatter that stays around long enough for detailed study, you need more than just an accelerator. This is where CERN's unique “antimatter factory” comes in. It takes antiparticles created in the Proton Synchrotron and slows them down to manageable speeds in what is effectively the exact opposite of a particle accelerator: the Antiproton Decelerator. The resulting "anti-atoms" can then be studied by a range of instruments such as AEGIS (Antihydrogen Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry and Spectroscopy). 

One question that AEGIS should be able to answer soon is the fascinating one of whether antimatter falls downwards in a gravitational field, like ordinary matter, or upwards in the opposite direction.

Is the Large Hadron Collider dangerous?

For various reasons over the years, people have speculated that experiments at CERN might pose a danger to the public. Fortunately, such worries are groundless. Take for example the N in CERN, which stands for "nuclear", according to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). This has nothing to do with the reactions that take place inside nuclear weapons, which involve swapping protons and neutrons inside nuclei. 

CERN's research is at an even lower level than this, in the constituents of the protons and neutrons themselves. It's sometimes referred to as "high energy" physics, but the energies are only "high" when viewed on a subatomic scale. Particles inside the LHC, for example, typically only have the energy of a mosquito, according to the LHC Safety Assessment Group 's safety report.

People have also worried that the LHC might produce a "mini black hole," but even if this happened — which is unlikely — it would be unbelievably tiny, and so unstable that it would vanish within a fraction of a second according to the safety report. report.

Over 12 years after it entered service, the LHC is still the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator. But it won't hold that record forever. Several countries have plans to go a step further, including China's Circular Electron Positron Collider and the International Linear Collider in Japan.

Europe's proposal is the Future Circular Collider (FCC), to be built near the LHC at CERN but dwarfing it in size. Though not yet financially approved — the estimated cost is £20 billion ($27 billion) — the design is well advanced according to Physics World . 

The FCC would be 62 miles (99 km) in circumference and sit alongside the LHC, which it would use as a particle injector, ultimately achieving energies seven times greater than its predecessor.

Dr. Nellist works on the Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS experiment at CERN.

We discuss what it's like to work with the world's largest particle accelerator. 

How did you come to be involved with the ATLAS experiment?

I started on ATLAS for my PhD research. I was developing new pixel sensors to improve the measurement of particles as they pass through our detector. It's really important to make them resistant to radiation damage, which is a big concern when you put the sensors close to the particle collisions. Since then, I've had the opportunity to work on a number of different projects, such as understanding how the Higgs boson and the top quark interact with each other. Now I'm applying machine learning algorithms to our data to look for hints of dark matter. One of the biggest mysteries in physics right now is, what is 85% of the matter in our universe? We call it dark matter, but we don't actually know much about it! 

What's it like working with such a unique and powerful machine? 

It's really amazing to be able to work on this incredibly complicated machine with people from all over the world. No one person can run it all, so each team becomes an expert on their specific part. When we all work together, we can make discoveries about the smallest building blocks of our universe. 

Are there any exciting new developments you're particularly looking forward to? 

We're starting the Large Hadron Collider up again this year, so I'm really excited to see what we might find with it. Part of our work is to understand the particles we already know about in as much detail as possible to check that our theories match what we measure. But we're also looking for brand-new particles that we've never seen before. If we find something new, it could be a candidate for dark matter, or it could be something completely unexpected.

You can take a virtual tour of the Large Hadron Collider with the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN), which gives you a 360-degree look inside the collider. You can also view the status of the Large Hadron Collider in real-time with CERN's Vistar tool . Learn about what particle accelerators have done for us in this interesting article from Physics World. There are many particle accelerators all around the world, for a comprehensive list of examples, check out this resource from the Physics Institute of the University of Bonn , Germany. 

• Sirunyan, A. M., et al. " Evidence for X (3872) in Pb-Pb Collisions and Studies of its Prompt Production at s N N= 5.02 TeV. " Physical Review Letters 128.3 (2022): 032001. 
• Aaij, Roel, et al. " Test of lepton universality in beauty-quark decays. " arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.11769 (2021). 
• LHC Safety Assessment Group " Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions ". 
• LHC Safety Assessment Group " Review of the Safety of LHC Collisions Addendum on strangelets ". June 2008. 
• Giddings, Steven B., and Michelangelo L. Mangano. " Astrophysical implications of hypothetical stable TeV-scale black holes. " Physical Review D 78.3 (2008): 035009. 
• Aad, Georges, et al. " The ATLAS experiment at the CERN large hadron collider. " Journal of instrumentation 3.S08003 (2008). 
• Dimopoulos, Savas, and Greg Landsberg. " Black holes at the large hadron collider. " Physical Review Letters 87.16 (2001): 161602. 

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Andrew May holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Manchester University, U.K. For 30 years, he worked in the academic, government and private sectors, before becoming a science writer where he has written for Fortean Times, How It Works, All About Space, BBC Science Focus, among others. He has also written a selection of books including Cosmic Impact and Astrobiology: The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe, published by Icon Books.

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Prepare to have your mind blown by  CERN, Europe's particle physics centre, where researchers operate the famous Large Hadron Collider, nestled near the charming Swiss lakeside city of Geneva.

This tour focuses on CERN and Geneva's fascinating history before heading to Chamonix in France to explore Mont Blanc and a nearby glacier. During the tour, you will enjoy a private lecture from particle physicist Darren Price, who will also give you a personal guided tour of CERN.

In Geneva, you will also explore the old town, cruise the lake, visit the Museum of the History of Science and learn about horology at the Patek Philippe Museum.

In partnership with Kirker Holidays.

  DAY 1: ARRIVE INTO GENEVA

On arrival, check into the 4-star Hotel Royal, located in the centre of Geneva. The remainder of the afternoon will be free for you to explore this beautiful city.

In the evening, meet with your tour leader and the group for a welcome session followed by dinner at a local restaurant.

Day 2: OLD TOWN AND AN INTRODUCTION TO CERN

This morning, you will start with a walking tour of the old town centre of Geneva, including the cathedral where John Calvin preached in the 16th century and a visit to the Patek Philippe Museum, where you will discover over 2500 watches, automata and precious objects representing five centuries of Genevan and Swiss horological innovation.

This evening particle physicist Darren Price will join you to give a talk on particle physics and his work at CERN, followed by dinner together.

DAY 3: CERN AND THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

Today is devoted to the CERN complex, where the European Organization for Nuclear Research operates the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, including the famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The largest machine ever constructed, with a circumference of 17 miles, the LHC is one of the most important research establishments in the world, and several areas are open to visitors. Darren will accompany the visit to the lab itself and you will see the Universe of Particles exhibition inside the Globe of Science and Innovation, a 27-metre-high wooden dome. CERN also has a new flagship building for science education, an innovative tubular structure called the CERN Science Gateway, with immersive exhibitions and hands-on activities.

DAY 4: CHAMONIX AND MONT BLANC

Heading out of Geneva for the day, you will travel into the majestic Alps, which provide the city’s striking backdrop. You will visit the charming small town of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc and take the mountain railway to the Mer de Glace, where you will visit an ice cave carved into the glacier. You will enjoy a traditional fondue lunch and there will be an option to take Europe's highest cable car up to the summit of the Aiguille du Midi. The views over the Alps from this 3800-metre-high peak are simply stunning. 

DAY 5: SCIENCE, DIPLOMACY, BOTANY AND LAKE GENEVA

Today, you will start at the Museum of the History of Science, which opened in the 1960s inside the neo-classical Villa Bartholoni. The museum, located by Lake Geneva, houses exhibits relating to astronomy, microscopy, meteorology and electricity, including a collection of scientific instruments from the 17th to 19th centuries, such as microscopes, telescopes, thermometers and astrolabes.

You will continue to the Palais des Nations, built for the League of Nations and still an important UN centre, before reaching the Botanical Gardens and Conservatory, where you can wander in 69 calming acres of grounds, which are home to more than 14,000 species, including rare medicinal plants plus a herbarium with nearly 6 million specimens.

In the evening, you will take a dinner cruise on Lake Geneva, on board a Belle Epoque paddle steamer.

DAY 6: MORNING AT LEISURE BEFORE DEPARTING GENEVA

This morning will be free for independent sightseeing. In the afternoon, there will be a group transfer to Geneva airport for the flight home.

• Guided tour of the CERN physics facility, home of the Large Hadron Collider.
• Evening talks and walking seminars from Professor Darren Price.
• Museum of the History of Science and the Patek Philippe Museum.
• Mont Blanc's Aiguille du Midi peak via cable car.
• Mer de Glace glacial caves.
• Historic and beautiful Geneva.
• Botanical Gardens and Conservatory.
• Scenic cruise on Lake Geneva.

Meet the expert

Darren Price (Tour expert - May and October)

Darren is a professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester, UK. He read mathematics at the University of Cambridge, followed by an MSc and PhD in experimental particle physics. He has 20 years of experience in this kind of research, working at and with laboratories and institutes worldwide. At CERN, he leads an international team working as part of the ATLAS Collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider. His research spans the search for new particles, the study of quantum chromodynamics, high-energy electroweak phenomena and the hunt for dark matter. Darren is a UK STEM Ambassador and regularly contributes to a wide range of public engagement activities.

Juliet Rix (Tour leader - May)

Juliet is an award-winning journalist working for UK national newspapers, magazines and online media, as well as the BBC. She is a regular traveller throughout Europe. She has written extensively in the national press about destinations and subjects ranging from Leonardo da Vinci in Italy and Rembrandt in Holland, to Georgia, Taiwan and Charleston, South Carolina - as well as numerous articles on the culture and history of the Maltese islands (including the 'Malta & Gozo' Bradt Guide, 4th Edition 2019).

WHAT’S INCLUDED

• Accommodation based on sharing a double/twin room.
• Breakfast every day and three dinners.
• Arrival/departure group airport transfers for those on the suggested group flights.
• The services of a tour leader and local guide.
• Guest lectures from Darren Price.
• All sightseeing and entrance fees.
• 24-hour support from tour leader.

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

• International flights.
• Gratuities.
• Private airport transfers.
• Travel insurance.
• Single supplement - £598.

HOW TO GET THERE

This tour begins and ends in Geneva. Please speak to Kirker Holidays, who can offer flight advice and book flights for those travelling from the UK. 

If you would prefer not to fly, we can book a Eurostar/TGV train journey for you from London or Paris.

PACE & PHYSICALITY

This a relatively easy-going tour, but there will be walking on ice, up and down steps and through Geneva's Old Town. Therefore, you need to be mobile and sturdy shoes are recommended. The cable car journey up the Aiguille du Midi is optional.

SOLO TRAVELLERS

All of our tours, cruises, expeditions and weekenders are perfect for solo travellers. If you want your own room, you will need to pay a solo supplement of £598 for this tour. However, if you are happy to share a room with a fellow guest of the same sex, we will do all we can to match you with another guest so you do not have to pay the solo room supplement.

Accommodation

Hotel Royal, Geneva

An elegant 4-star hotel located a 5-minute walk from Geneva train station, the Old Town and Lake Geneva. It has a bar, bistro and restaurant along with sauna, steam room and gym. All guests also receive a free pass for Geneva public transport.

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Is CERN activating the world’s most powerful particle accelerator for the April 8 eclipse? No

Cern restarted its large hadron collider after a regular winter stop for maintenance. it is unrelated to the eclipse. .

As people around the country await the April 8 total eclipse, conspiracy theories about a Switzerland-based nuclear research facility have some social media users on edge. In their view is CERN, also known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

“Why is CERN being reactivated on April 8, the same day as the infamous eclipse?” asked a  March 29 Facebook post , referencing what it called the group’s plan to activate “the large hadron collider” on the day of the eclipse. “My gut instinct is that something really big is being planned for that day… perhaps a total takedown of both the grid and society in general worldwide.” In  another post  April 1, a man in a baseball cap speculated that CERN is deliberately starting back up April 8 to “open up a gateway, a portal.”

(Screenshot/Facebook)

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our  partnership with Meta , which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

It is not unusual for scientists to conduct research during an eclipse, when the sun’s corona becomes visible and areas in totality go briefly dark in the moon’s shadow.  Total solar eclipses   allow researchers “to study Earth’s atmosphere under uncommon conditions.” NASA, for example, is launching three sounding rockets on the day of the eclipse to study its effects on the ionosphere (a mission that also became a  subject of   misinformation ).

But CERN’s research is different. The primary research focus of CERN — an acronym derived from the French name “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” — is  particle physics , or “the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces acting between them.” The organization seeks to find answers about the  universe’s fundamental structure .

CERN houses the Large Hadron Collider, the  most powerful particle accelerator in the world , which measures around 16.8 miles (27 kilometers) in circumference. The collider’s aim, as  Britannica explains , is to “understand the fundamental structure of matter by re-creating the extreme conditions that occurred in the first few moments of the universe according to the big-bang model.”

CERN spokesperson Sophie Tesauri told PolitiFact in an email that the collider’s activities have nothing to do with the April 8 eclipse.

“What we do at CERN is doing particle physics with accelerators such as the LHC, and this has little to do with astrophysics in a direct way,”  Tesauri said. “So there is no link between the solar eclipse on Monday 8th April, and what we do at CERN.”

CERN has an  accelerator complex  composed of machines with “increasingly higher energies.” A beam of particles is injected by one machine to the next one, bringing the beam to a higher energy — and the Large Hadron Collider is the last element in this complex.

“Hadrons” are a group of particles that include protons and ions. In the Large Hadron Collider,  two beams  travel in opposite directions at nearly light speed and are made to collide. In 2012, Large Hadron Collider experiments led to the discovery of the  Higgs boson particle , a particle named for British physicist Peter Higgs, who in the 1960s postulated about the existence of a particle that interacted with other particles at the beginning of time to provide them with their mass.

Tesauri told PolitiFact that the accelerator complex is restarted every year after a brief winter technical stop, when beam production ceases so that the accelerators can undergo maintenance. Restarting an accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider “requires a full commissioning process in order to check that all equipment works properly.”

“Now that all the checks have been performed, the LHC is ready to provide particle collisions to the LHC experiments, and first collisions for this year should actually happen today 5th April,” Tesauri said in her email. “This will mark the beginning of the physics run for 2024.”

The beams were initially expected to enter collision April 8, according to a  March 14 report . It said, “Depending on how work progresses, this milestone may shift forwards or backwards by a few days.”

On April 5, CERN  announced  that the Large Hadron Collider achieved its first stable beams in 2024, “marking the official start of the 2024 physics data-taking season.” The statement said that from March 8 to April 5, the Large Hadron Collider was set up to handle the beam and tested for any issues.

“Although the solar eclipse on 8 April will not affect the beams in the LHC, the gravitational pull of the moon, like the tides, changes the shape of the LHC because the machine is so big,” CERN’s announcement said. This phenomenon is not unique to an eclipse; a  2012 news release  discussed distortions in the machine brought about by a full moon.

According to CERN’s frequently asked questions page, the Large Hadron Collider is  expected to run over 20 years , “with several stops scheduled for upgrades and maintenance work.”

Conspiracy theories surrounding CERN’s work have been circulating for  years . In a statement to  Verify  fact-checkers, CERN said that its research “captures the imagination of lots of people, which is why CERN has been featured in a lot of science fiction books / even movies, around the world.” CERN said works inspired by its research are fictional and “should not be confused with the actual scientific research.”

False claims about the group’s work are so common that the organization addresses some common theories on its  FAQ page : No, it won’t “open a door to another dimension,” and no, it won’t “generate black holes in the cosmological sense.”

We rate the claim that CERN is activating its Large Hadron Collider in connection with the April 8 solar eclipse False.

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A Private Tour of CERN’s Large Hadron Collider

As a particle physicist student, I’m allowed certain privileges in the physics world. Most of these are dull. But in 2008, I was granted permission to visit CERN with my class for the day. We were to have a private tour of the experimental particle accelerator spread out over Switzerland and France.

The Large Hadron Collider by numbers.

I’ve always found the best way to try and explain the enormous magnitude of this machine is to look at the crazy numbers that describe how it works.

• The LHC is a particle accelerator built over the border of France and Switzerland.
• 10,000 physicists and engineers from 85 different countries are currently working on the LHC.
• It is built 200 metres underground.
• It has a circumference of 27 kilometers.
• It is used to accelerate beams of protons to speeds of 99.99% of the speed of light.
• Each beam consists of 3000 bunches of 100 billion particles each.
• In one second, each beam will make 11,245 laps of the accelerator.
• The beams are steered by a collection of 9600 magnets, which are cooled to a temperature of -456 fahrenheit.
• Over a space of a year the LHC will gather about 15 petabytes of data. A petabyte is a million gigabytes. That much data could fill 100,000 DVDs.

Just think about that… 3,000,000,000,000,000 particles making over 11,000 laps of a 27 kilometre ring… In ONE second! To this day, I still find these numbers staggering and impossible to even begin to get my head around.

After taking nine years to be built, the LHC finally went into operation in 2009. I had my tour in 2008 so was able to visit the accelerator itself, something which is no longer possible to do now that it is working.

What is the point of the LHC?

The LHC accelerates protons to extremely high energies and forces them to collide creating new particles which can then be studied. In doing so it is hoped that we will be able to recreate the conditions that were present at the Big Bang in order to answer some of the most fundamental questions of the universe – Why are we here? How was matter formed? Why do we have mass? What is dark matter? As well as trying to discover new physics, new particles and new theories that have previously been unheard of.

The visit took place in the middle of December, and after having to wake up at 4 in the morning I was less than impressed at having to face the cold, snowy Swiss weather!

We were quickly ushered into the reception area and received a short briefing informing us on what our tour would include, followed by an informative talk describing the basics of the LHC and its individual detectors. What the poster shows is the main ring of the LHC as the biggest ring at the top, and all the other beam lines that are used to accelerate or store the beams of particles.

One of the things that I loved about CERN was the fact that the street names were named after famous physicists.

We made our way over to one of the six detectors – ATLAS, known as the general purpose detector. When the beams collide in the centre of the detector, may different particles will be produced with a large range of energies. What ATLAS does is measure the broadest possible range of the signals, rather than focusing on a specific region.

One of the fun parts of the building that holds the detector is the huge hole in the floor with a platform over the edge enabling visitors to peer 200 metres down to see the accelerator beamline below. I hate heights and so I was actually pretty terrified at this point and I have to confess I did not physicially look over the edge, I held my camera over, took a photo and squealed as I ran back to safety!

It was then time to view the components of the LHC itself. We started with the linear accelerator (LINAC) which is where it all begins. As is indicated by the name, the purpose of the LINAC is to accelerate the protons down a linear beamline. By the time the protons have reached the end of this accelerator they are already traveling at 1/3 the speed of light.

At these speeds, the proton beams are then passed through a series of booster rings to further increase their energy until it is high enough for them to enter the main LHC ring. Here they will keep circulating for hours continually colliding at the six different detectors.

We were given some time to walk around and take photos of random parts of the components.

I visited the Low Energy Ion Ring which can capture, cool and store matter and anti-matter in order to study them later. Unlike Angels and Demons this anti-matter cannot be sneaked out and stolen from CERN – It’s stored in an 80 metre ring!

I visited the brains of the operation – The ATLAS control room. Here the physicists test, calibrate, improve, fix, and tweak small parts of the ATLAS detector. It consists of 15 stations, each with 4 monitors, and 8 projection screens on the wall.

We learnt about how CERN used to store its data collected. I mentioned above that in a year of data taking the LHC could fill 100,000 DVDs, well in the 1960s THIS is what they used to store their data and it only held a few kilobytes of data!

And with that, my whirlwind tour of science’s most magnificent machine drew to a close, and there was only one thing left for me to do…

However as a final note… I thought I’d answer the question I am most asked by my non-physicist friends.

Is the LHC going to destroy the world and kill us all?

When the LHC went into operation there was a lot of craziness in the press about the possibility of it being able to generate black holes that would suck up the Earth and kill us all. There are hundreds of conspiracy theories out there, and a huge amount of websites dedicated to this. More recently I stumbled across a website that blamed the earthquake/tsunami in Japan on the LHC, saying the huge energies generated caused a shockwave through the Earth, thus creating the earthquake. I cannot put into words how angry that makes me and how completely ridiculous and uninformed these morons are!

Allow me to categorically state now that there is NO way that the LHC is going to kill us. What you have to realise is that the world, and indeed the universe, is constantly bombarded by high energy cosmic rays from extragalactic sources. Hold out your hand now, and these cosmic rays are passing through them every second. Some of these rays in the atmosphere induce particle collisions thousands of times more powerful than those that will ever be produced by the LHC. As this has been taking place for billions of years after the big bang, well, if these collisions could create black holes, lets just say it would have happened by now.

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Lauren Juliff

Lauren Juliff is a published author and travel expert who founded Never Ending Footsteps in 2011. She has spent over 12 years travelling the world, sharing in-depth advice from more than 100 countries across six continents. Lauren's travel advice has been featured in publications like the BBC, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Cosmopolitan, and her work is read by 200,000 readers each month. Her travel memoir can be found in bookstores across the planet.

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41 comments.

Great pictures! The nerd in my is saying “Dude… that’s so cool!”

Hahahaha, I had that same reaction when I was writing it up… It made me think Wow, I love physics again!!

1 – I don’t believe you and think we will all blow up because of this infernal machine soon… so we should all throw a bit party.

2 – you are pretty cool.

3 – smart chicks scare me ;)

1 – Only if it’s a physics themed fancy dress party.

2 – I am SO cool

3 – Best stop talking to me then…

So, how long have they given themselves to find the particle?

If it exists, it should be discovered within 5 years or so. If we don’t find it by then, then we may have to re-evaluate the Standard Model of particle physics…

I’M SO JEALOUS YOU GOT TO GO HERE!!!! I’m having a nerd-gasm reading this. This machine is beyond incredible.

Did they let you into the super secret part to see the wormhole machines and deep-space cruisers? xD

It was SO amazing!

They did but I’m afraid there was a strict no photography rule…. ;)

I don’t quite understand most of this, but it looks and sounds impressive! Thinking about atoms and super-tiny particles kinda makes my head hurt.

As long as it sounds impressive… :)

I’m USELESS at physics (I spent most of the class scratching things into the science bench with a compass…) but this is pretty cool!

I too am terrified of heights so I empathise with the squeal haha!

I’m glad you included the last bit, I was wondering, “but can’t this thing destroy the ENTIRE WORLD” haha! I learned something new today thanks to you! :)

I’m USELESS at physics (I spent most of the class scratching things into the science bench with a compass…) but this is pretty cool!

I’m glad you included the last bit, I was wondering, “but can’t this thing destroy the ENTIRE WORLD” haha! I learned something new today thanks to you! :)

It’s funny that I was terrible and hated it back in school – But I love it now it’s gotten onto badass stuff like this!

Glad you learned something new hahaha!

I would love to visit that place as well. It’s such an impressive thing they build over there, and would love to learn more about it.

It’s something I’ve learnt about so much over the duration of my physics degree, and there’s still so much I don’t understand about it… Get reading!

The nerd in me is insanely jealous you got to do this! I just watched a video on it in the other day in physics… You got to GO THERE!

I DID! I actually wish I’d been able to go there later on in my degree when I knew more about it and would have appreciated it more :)

Alright, I must confess – am massively impressed and very very jealous. Coming from a physics and engineering background, I know the feeling. I’ve visited a synchrotron before (in India – in fact, CERN was built in collaboration with scientists from Indus synchrotron in India), and that was a great experience. CERN must be absolutely amazing.

Oh, that must have been cool to see a synchrotron in India. I’ve only visited the LHC, but I’d love to visit another particle accelerator to see how they compare!

It reminds me of the Syncrotron at the University of Saskatoon, only way bigger, underground, and with its own doomsday cult.

I’d love to see it.

It is truly amazing! Arghhh the doomsday cult annoys the hell out of me!!

I’ve just realized that I live near this CERN and didn’t knew about this! I’m quite useless in physics… but the numbers are impressive! I’m kind of a frustrated engineer – so I really love the pictures too.

You should be disappointed in yourself! Yeah, the numbers are frightening, hard to get your head around :)

Completely envious! It’s all but impossible to go underground on the CERN tours now. Almost worth it, to go back to uni reading particle physics, just for a chance to see the LHC.

I know, it is a shame that you can’t get up close to it! I fully recommend going to study particle physics – I love it! :D

You have to give props to the person who designed the paint scheme for all the components. Very colorful!

I KNOW! I loved the colours they have chosen – I would have had a pink LHC! :D

Very cool! You are lucky you got the chance to see it up close. It’s hard to really comprehend such immense size until you see something in person. Your second last picture really shows how long it is … it seems to go on forever!

I know, the fact that it’s spread across two different countries is crazy!

I’ve been to the Fermi Lab in Batavia, Illinois a few times in the (distant) past. Nothing to do w/ physics myself but I was an exchange student in the general vicinity and knew some people who worked there. I remember helping to serve refreshments in a Stephen Hawking lecture once!

That’s awesome – I’d love to go there! And a Stephen Hawking lecture??? SO cool!

Makes me wish I was a physicist! No chance for lesser mortals, I take it?

WOW! I am soooooooooo jealous of you, I would literally pay to work at that place, even as a janitor! (I’m preparing for a uni course similar to yours, though :P )

How do you go about arranging a tour there?

We will visit Geneva from 25th of September to 30th of September. Would love to visit LHC if possible Sincerely, Eric and Sharon Foster

As an architect, I’m envious that you got to see the LHC while still under construction…nevertheless, I’m planning a tour & hoping to see as much as possible. Thanks for the glance into the technology. Kimberly

For anyone who’s interested CERN are holding an open weekend on 28th & 29th September 2013. Loads to see and do above ground at the various sites plus, and this is the exciting part, there are tickets available for visits to the UNDERGROUND experiment sites ! You can only have one ticket for the weekend so pick wisely and be quick. A small amount of tickets are allocated each day and go VERY quickly, they announce the time that the next day’s tickets will be released straight after each lot goes. They have allocated 70% of tickets so far. Find out everything, including how to register to apply for tickets, at : http://opendays2013.web.cern.ch/

Thanks for sharing, Julie!

I didn’t really know what the LHC was actually trying to achieve, but I did know it was a massive scientific project. So to see it summed up so simply in layman’s terms was quite useful and at last I know what it is all about! Thanks

Sweet! Glad you found it interesting :-)

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Meet Lauren Juliff

CERN Accelerating science

Immersive tour of the accelerator complex

Dive into CERN's accelerator complex with these 360° panoramic photos. You can take a virtual tour of the installed machines and equipment, visit different areas of the CERN accelerator complex and learn more about them.

The panoramas project was originally developed to provide an immersive visual aid to help prepare interventions on the CERN facilities. A  public version has been released to offer an immersive experience for everyone. 

Click on a point of interest in the map below to start exploring.

No, CERN won't open a portal during the April 8 eclipse. That'd be impossible | Fact check

The claim: CERN will start up April 8 to open a portal during the eclipse

An April 1 Facebook post ( direct link , archive link ) shows a man telling viewers about his visit to the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, and what he thinks the organization will do on April 8.

“They’re going to open up and start using CERN and testing it the day of the eclipse,” he said. “Here’s what I think is going on. They, the powers that be, are opening up CERN in coordination with the eclipse, to open up a gateway, a portal.”

The post was shared more than 1,000 times in four days.

Fact check roundup:   2024 eclipse one of many reasons flat Earth claims are nonsense

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Our rating: False

The post is wrong about both the timing and the nature of CERN's work. CERN's equipment began operating in March, a month before the eclipse, and the technology is nowhere near strong enough to open a portal or a black hole.

CERN’s collider was restarted in March after a winter break

On April 8, people across 13 states will see a total solar eclipse , when the moon passes directly between the Earth and the sun. But CERN’s technology has nothing to do with the astronomical phenomenon.

CERN uses its Large Hadron Collider to study matter and is responsible for finding the Higgs boson particle , or God particle. ​​Scientists say the finding helps explain the Big Bang theory and how the universe was formed.

Sophie Tesauri , a spokesperson for CERN, told USA TODAY there is no link between what CERN does and the upcoming eclipse. 

“What we do at CERN is doing particle physics with accelerators such as the (Large Hadron Collider), and this has little to do with astrophysics in a direct way,” Tesauri said.

And CERN couldn't create a portal even if it wanted to , Dejan Stojkovic, a physics professor at the University at Buffalo, previously told USA TODAY .

"To create a black hole or a wormhole, even microscopic ones, with our current technology, in the context of our standard theories of gravity, we need an accelerator as big as the whole universe," Stojkovic said. "So there is no chance whatsoever to create such a portal at the (Large Hadron Collider)."

The claim is also wrong about the timing of CERN's testing.

Each year after a brief winter technical stop, CERN restarts its accelerator complex and the collider, Tesauri said. This year it was restarted on March 8 – a full month before the eclipse.

Fact check : A 'sex magic ritual'? No, NASA rockets are to study atmosphere during eclipse

USA TODAY has debunked other false eclipse claims, including assertions that the rockets NASA will launch during the event are part of a "sex magic ritual," that the eclipse is manufactured and that it will cause days of darkness .

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

• Sophie Tesauri , April 5, Email exchange with USA TODAY
• CERN, March 14, Accelerator Report: Beams are circulating in the LHC
• CERN, April 4, About page
• Space.com, Aug. 29, 2023, Higgs boson: The 'God Particle' explained
• USA TODAY, July 26, Fact check: Scientists at CERN are not opening a 'portal to hell'

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here .

USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta .

Argonne National Laboratory

Machine learning could help reveal undiscovered particles within data from the large hadron collider, the study marks the first use of a neural network to analyze data from a collider experiment.

For over two decades, the ATLAS particle detector has recorded the highest energy particle collisions in the world within the Large Hadron Collider ( LHC ) located at CERN , the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Beams of protons are accelerated around the LHC at close to the speed of light, and upon their collision at ATLAS , they produce a cascade of new particles, resulting in over a billion particle interactions per second.

Particle physicists are tasked with mining this massive and growing store of collision data for evidence of undiscovered particles. In particular, they’re searching for particles not included in the Standard Model of particle physics, our current understanding of the universe’s makeup that scientists suspect is incomplete.

As part of the ATLAS collaboration, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s ( DOE ) Argonne National Laboratory and their colleagues recently used a machine learning approach called anomaly detection to analyze large volumes of ATLAS data. The method has never before been applied to data from a collider experiment. It has the potential to improve the efficiency of the collaboration’s search for something new. The collaboration involves scientists from 172 research organizations.

The team leveraged a brain-inspired type of machine learning algorithm called a neural network to search the data for abnormal features, or anomalies. The technique breaks from more traditional methods of searching for new physics. It is independent of — and therefore unconstrained by — the preconceptions of scientists.

“ Rather than looking for very specific deviations, the goal is to find unusual signatures in the data that are completely unexplored, and that may look different from what our theories predict.” — Physicist Sergei Chekanov

Traditionally, ATLAS scientists have relied on theoretical models to help guide their experiment and analysis in the directions most promising for discovery. This often involves performing complex computer simulations to determine how certain aspects of collision data would look according to the Standard Model. Scientists compare these Standard Model predictions to real data from ATLAS . They also compare them to predictions made by new physics models, like those attempting to explain dark matter and other phenomena unaccounted for by the Standard Model.

But so far, no deviations from the Standard Model have been observed in the billions of billions of collisions recorded at ATLAS . And since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the ATLAS experiment has yet to find any new particles.

“ Anomaly detection is a very different way of approaching this search,” said Sergei Chekanov, a physicist in Argonne’s High Energy Physics division and a lead author on the study. ​ “ Rather than looking for very specific deviations, the goal is to find unusual signatures in the data that are completely unexplored and that may look different from what our theories predict.”

To perform this type of analysis, the scientists represented each particle interaction in the data as an image that resembles a QR code. Then, the team trained their neural network by exposing it to 1% of the images.

The network consists of around 2 million interconnected nodes, which are analogous to neurons in the brain. Without human guidance or intervention, it identified and remembered correlations between pixels in the images that characterize Standard Model interactions. In other words, it learned to recognize typical events that fit within Standard Model predictions.

After training, the scientists fed the other 99% of the images through the neural network to detect any anomalies. When given an image as input, the neural network is tasked with recreating the image using its understanding of the data as a whole.

“ If the neural network encounters something new or unusual, it gets confused and has a hard time reconstructing the image,” said Chekanov. ​ “ If there is a large difference between the input image and the output it produces, it lets us know that there might be something interesting to explore in that direction.”

Using computational resources at Argonne’s Laboratory Computing Resource Center, the neural network analyzed around 160 million events within LHC Run-2 data collected from 2015 to 2018.

Although the neural network didn’t find any glaring signs of new physics in this data set, it did spot one anomaly that the scientists think is worth further study. An exotic particle decay at an energy of around 4.8 teraelectronvolts results in a muon (a type of fundamental particle) and a jet of other particles in a way that does not fit with the neural network’s understanding of Standard Model interactions.

“ We’ll have to do more investigation,” said Chekanov. ​ “ It is likely a statistical fluctuation, but there’s a chance this decay could indicate the existence of an undiscovered particle.”

The team plans to apply this technique to data collected during the LHC Run-3 period, which began in 2022. ATLAS scientists will continue to explore the potential of machine learning and anomaly detection as tools for charting unknown territory in particle physics.

The results of the study were published in Physical Review Letters . This work was funded in part by the DOE Office of Science’s Office of High Energy Physics and the National Science Foundation.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science .

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience .

CERN Accelerating science

The Large Hadron Collider on tour

Collider, a new exhibition about the LHC, opens in London this week. It will stay for 6 months before a planned international tour

12 November, 2013

By Kate Kahle

A new exhibition about the Large Hadron Collider opens this week. Collider will be at London’s Science Museum, UK, for six months before a planned international tour.

Webcast events today precede the official opening to the public tomorrow. At 12.05pm (CET), Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Peter Higgs will be answering questions from students. Later today, events include an audience with physicist Stephen Hawking and a discussion of science and art with author Ian McEwan and theorist Nima Arkani-Hamed. Follow the action on Twitter with the hashtag #smCollider or at the Science Museum website .

Collider blends theatre, video and sound art with real artefacts from CERN. Explore the superconducting magnets that steer the beams in the LHC and the radiofrequency cavities that accelerate the particles. Or examine detailed detector electronics from the ATLAS , CMS , ALICE and LHCb experiments at the LHC.

The exhibition runs until 6 May 2014. Tickets are available via the Science Museum website . Entry is free for CERN access-badge holders.

The launch of Collider coincides with the publication of two new books linked to the LHC: The Large Hadron Collider Popup Book – the Higgs Edition in which 7000 tonnes of metal, glass, plastic, cables and computer chips leap from the page in miniature pop-up as you discover the LHC and its quest to find out what the universe is made of and how it works. Hunting the Higgs tells the story of one of the world’s largest particle detectors, the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, from its inception in the late 1980s to its construction in the 2000s and its first years of operation in the 2010s.

Find out more about Collider and stay up to date on Twitter

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CERN particle collider reboot unrelated to solar eclipse

Social media posts suggest a connection between the reboot of the world's largest particle collider and the april 8, 2024 solar eclipse -- with some claiming it is an effort to harness solar energy. but the european nuclear research lab that operates the large hadron collider says it has conducted experiments since march, and the project has no direct link to  astrophysics ..

"Very interesting, especially how CERN chose to turn their Large Hadron Collider back on the day of this SOLar Eclipse April 8th. Are they attempting to harness the energy of this Solar Eclipse?" says an Instagram post published March 29 , 2024, days before a highly anticipated solar eclipse across North America .

Another post on X says: "As The Energy Is Directed From The Moon, The CERN Accelerator Will Harness This Frequency And Amplify It. It Will Then Gain Momentum And Be Directed To Dark Portals Where Entities Gather And Wait For Signals To Act In Accordance."

Similar claims referencing the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), a Swiss-based research facility , circulated  elsewhere on X ,  TikTok and Threads .

CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) uses a 17-mile loop of superconducting magnets to smash sub-atomic particles at close to the speed of light. The accelerator has been the subject of numerous  conspiracy theories -- amplified in part by the Dan Brown novel "Angels & Demons," which includes a plot to steal antimatter from the lab.

CERN says on its website (archived here) that the LHC is restarting after a winter maintenance break and has been conducting experiments since March. The  first stable beams returned April 5 (archived here ).

The timing is unrelated to the eclipse.

"There is no link between the solar eclipse on Monday and what we do at CERN," said Arnaud Marsollier, head of CERN media relations, in an April 5 email.

He added that the research facility typically restarts its machines in early spring, and that the focus of the LHC "has little to do with astrophysics in a direct way ."

CERN particle physicist Clara Nellist (archived here ) also addressed claims linking the eclipse to the collider in a March 31  YouTube video (archived here ).

"It's the regular running that starts on April 8, it just happens to coincide with an astronomical event," she says in the clip. "So the timing is a pure coincidence."

AFP has debunked claims that the LHC is opening up dangerous black holes capable of swallowing the  Earth .

"Particles are hitting the atmosphere of the Earth all the time at much higher energies than we can create in the laboratory," David Miller , an associate physics professor at the University of Chicago who has collaborated on CERN research (archived here ), previously told AFP. 

"If a black hole is being created in the lab, it means it is being created in the atmosphere all the time."

AFP has debunked other claims about the eclipse here .

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International Edition

CERN Accélérateur de science

• Liens utiles

Passage de relais au Bureau de l’ombud du CERN

16 avril, 2024

Par Internal Communication

Laure Esteveny (à gauche) remet les clés du Bureau de l’ombud à Marie-Luce Falipou, qui entrera en fonction le 1er mai. (Image: CERN)

Le Bureau de l’ombud du CERN a été créé en 2010 afin de proposer à l'ensemble de la communauté du CERN un service d'appui pour la résolution informelle des conflits, de manière consensuelle et impartiale. Depuis, plusieurs ombuds se sont succédés dans cette fonction solidement ancrée au sein du Laboratoire. Le 1er mai, Marie-Luce Falipou, cinquième ombud du CERN, prendra ses fonctions. Elle succède à Laure Esteveny, qui occupe ce poste depuis avril 2021 et qui part en préretraite.

À cette occasion, Laure et Marie-Luce ont accepté de répondre aux questions de l'équipe du Bulletin .

Le Bulletin  : Laure, qu’est-ce qui vous a poussée à devenir ombud ?

Laure  : J’ai débuté ma carrière d’ombud en 2021, après 35 années passées au sein de différents départements de l’Organisation. J’ai été attirée par le côté humain de la fonction, et je n’ai pas été déçue, je suis extrêmement heureuse d’avoir pu conclure ma carrière professionnelle en tant qu’ombud du CERN. C’est très enrichissant de pouvoir aider les gens à sortir d’une situation conflictuelle.

Le Bulletin  : Que faut-il pour réussir dans ce rôle ?

Laure  : Au début de chaque mandat, tout nouvel ombud du CERN suit la formation de l’Association internationale des ombuds ( IAO ) et une formation en médiation. C’est évidemment essentiel, mais les compétences que j’ai pu acquérir tout au long de ma carrière au CERN m’ont aussi été d’une aide précieuse. Il faut de bonnes capacités d’analyse et une grande rigueur pour réussir cette mission.

Pierre Gildemyn, mon prédécesseur, m’a aussi beaucoup soutenue. Il a toujours été disponible pour moi, pour répondre à mes questions, et m’a fait profiter de sa propre expérience d’ombud. À mon tour, je reste disponible pour Marie-Luce ; je serai ravie de pouvoir l’aider. Je l’invite également à s’appuyer sur l’IAO et l’ensemble des réseaux professionnels d’ombuds, notamment celui des organisations internationales à Genève (UNARIO) – les ombuds font preuve d’un grand esprit d’entraide.

Le Bulletin  : Avez-vous rencontré des difficultés ?

Laure  : Le rôle d’ombud apporte beaucoup humainement parlant. Si je dois citer une difficulté, je dirais que l’isolement qui découle de l’essence même de la fonction n’est pas toujours facile à vivre. De plus, par définition, l’ombud n’est exposé qu’aux situations problématiques et de souffrance, au « côté obscur de la force » ; c’est parfois lourd à porter.

Le Bulletin  : Marie-Luce, qu’est-ce qui vous amène dans ce rôle ?

Marie-Luce  : Je connais Pierre et Laure depuis longtemps ; je les ai vus s’épanouir dans leur rôle d’ombud, pour lequel ils ont nourri une vraie passion. C’est un privilège de pouvoir endosser ce rôle à mon tour.

J’ai passé toute ma carrière au CERN, 35 ans déjà, au sein du département des Ressources humaines. J’ai exercé différentes fonctions, notamment celle de HRA ( human resources adviser ) pendant 13 ans ; j’ai donc une bonne connaissance de la culture du travail au CERN. J’ai aussi été formée à l’écoute active – ces outils me seront certainement très utiles dans mon nouveau rôle. Pour moi, devenir ombud est vraiment une évolution naturelle, même si le rôle est bien sûr unique.

Le Bulletin  : Vous entrez en fonction le 1er mai prochain, mais on ne devient pas ombud du jour au lendemain j’imagine ?

Marie-Luce  : Oui, en effet, je vais prendre le temps de me préparer à ce nouveau rôle, qui est vraiment à part et auquel je dois me familiariser. J’ai conscience de l’importance et de l’impact que peut avoir l’ombud, et c’est avec beaucoup d’humilité et de gratitude que j’accepte cette mission.

Le Bulletin  : En tant que nouvelle ombud, quel message souhaitez-vous transmettre à la communauté du CERN ?

Marie-Luce  : Je veux que les gens sachent que le bureau de l’ombud est un endroit sûr et calme où ils seront écoutés et compris en toute confidentialité. L'ombud est au service de l'ensemble de la communauté du CERN, quel que soit le rôle occupé dans l’Organisation. Les questions, problèmes et conflits font partie intégrante de la vie, y compris sur le lieu de travail. Trouver la meilleure façon de les aborder fait une énorme différence, et c’est là que l’ombud peut aider.

Le Bulletin  : Un dernier mot ?

Marie-Luce  : Un grand merci à Laure d’avoir partagé son expérience avec moi et de m’assurer de son soutien ; c’est un atout précieux que d’avoir quelqu’un d’expérimenté sur qui compter.

Laure  : Merci à tous ceux et celles qui m’ont fait confiance, et tout de bon à Marie-Luce !

Le Bulletin  : Un grand merci à vous deux !

L’ombud est disponible du lundi au vendredi au bureau B500/1-004 sur le site de Meyrin. Pour prendre rendez-vous, en personne ou en ligne, contactez l’ombud à l’adresse : [email protected] .

Plus d’informations sur le site web de l’ombud : https://ombuds.web.cern.ch/fr

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