alt="Click for Geneva, Switzerland Forecast" height=60 width=468>

CERN logoThe European Organization for Nuclear Research (French: Centre Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire), known as CERN, is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco-Swiss border. The organization has twenty European member states, and is currently the workplace of approximately 2600 full-time employees, as well as some 7931 scientists and engineers (representing 500 universities and 80 nationalities).

CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research. Numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN by international collaborations to make use of them. The main site at Meyrin also has a large computer centre containing very powerful data processing facilities primarily for experimental data analysis, and because of the need to make them available to researchers elsewhere, has historically been (and continues to be) a major wide area networking hub.

As an international facility, the CERN sites are not officially under Swiss nor French jurisdiction. Member states' contributions to CERN for the year 2008 totalled CHF 1 billion (approximately €664 million, US$ 1 billion).

CERN member states CERN member states

Sites

CERN's main site CERN's main site, as seen from Switzerland looking towards France.

The smaller accelerators are located on the main Meyrin site (also known as the West Area), which was originally built in Switzerland alongside the French border, but has been extended to span the border since 1965. The French side is under Swiss jurisdiction and so there is no obvious border within the site, apart from a line of marker stones. There are six entrances to the Meyrin site:

  • A, in Switzerland. Open for all CERN personnel at specific times.
  • B, in Switzerland. Open for all CERN personnel 24/7. Often referred to as the main entrance
  • C, in Switzerland. Open for all CERN personnel at specific times.
  • D, in Switzerland. Open for goods reception at specific times.
  • E, in France. Open for French-resident CERN personnel at specific times. Controlled by customs personnel. Named "Porte Charles de Gaulle" in recognition of his role in the creation of the CERN.
  • Tunnel entrance, in France. Open for equipment transfer to and from CERN sites in France by personnel with a specific permit. This is the only permitted route for such transfers. Under the CERN treaty, no taxes are payable when such transfers are made. Controlled by customs personnel.

The SPS and LEP/LHC tunnels are located underground almost entirely outside the main site, and are mostly buried under French farmland and invisible from the surface. However they have surface sites at various points around them, either as the location of buildings associated with experiments or other facilities needed to operate the colliders such as cryogenic plants and access shafts. The experiments themselves are located at the same underground level as the tunnels at these sites.

Three of these experimental sites are in France, with ATLAS in Switzerland, although some of the ancillary cryogenic and access sites are in Switzerland. The largest of the experimental sites is the Prévessin site, also known as the North Area, which is the target station for non-collider experiments on the SPS accelerator. Other sites are the ones which were used for the UA1, UA2 and the LEP experiments (the latter which will be used for LHC experiments).

Outside of the LEP and LHC experiments, most are officially named and numbered after the site where they were located. For example, NA32 was an experiment looking at the production of charmed particles and located at the Prévessin (North Area) site while WA22 used the BEBC bubble chamber at the Meyrin (West Area) site to examine neutrino interactions. The UA1 and UA2 experiments were considered to be in the Underground Area, i.e. situated underground at sites on the SPS accelerator.

Member States

CERN members
Member States of CERN      Founding members      Members who joined CERN later

The original CERN signatories were:

 Belgium
 Denmark
 Germany (then West Germany)
 France
 Greece
 Italy
 Norway
 Sweden
 Switzerland
 Netherlands
 United Kingdom
 Yugoslavia

Since then:

 Austria joined in 1959
 Yugoslavia left in 1961
 Spain joined in 1961, left in 1969, rejoined in 1983
 Portugal joined in 1985
 Finland joined in 1991
 Poland joined in 1991
 Hungary joined in 1992
 Czech Republic joined in 1993
 Slovakia joined in 1993
 Bulgaria joined in 1999

There are currently twenty member countries.
Eight additional international organizations or countries have "observer status":

 European Commission
 India
 Israel
 Japan
 Russia
 Turkey
UNESCO
 United States

Public exhibits

CERN Globe of Science and Innovation CERN Globe of Science and Innovation

Facilities at CERN open to the public include:

  • The Globe of Science and Innovation, which opened in late 2005 and is used four times a week for special exhibits.
  • The Microcosm museum on particle physics and CERN history.

In pop culture

  • CERN is mentioned in several works of fiction and science fiction such as Robert Sawyer's Flashforward and Dan Brown's Angels and Demons in which the theoretical Higgs Boson figures prominently.
  • CERN's Large Hadron Collider is the subject of a (scientifically accurate) rap video featuring some of the facility's own staff:

References

  1. ^ CERN Website - Resources Planning and Control
  2. ^ The CERN Name, on the CERN website.
  3. ^ http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/History73-en.html
  4. ^ http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/History83-en.html
  5. ^ http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/History95-en.html
  6. ^ V. Fanti et al., Phys. Lett. B465 (1999) 335 (hep-ex/9909022)
  7. ^ CERN Website - LINAC
  8. ^ Overbye, Dennis (July 29, 2008). "Let the Proton Smashing Begin. (The Rap Is Already Written.)". The New York Times.
  9. ^ CERN press release, August 7 2008
  10. ^ "Large Hadron Collider to be launched Oct. 21 - Russian scientist". RIA Novosti.
  11. ^ "Red Carpet for CERN's 50th" (Nov. 2004). CERN bulletin. 

Links

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Technorati Tags:Technorati Tags:
Vote
28