Cern, “Accelerating Science”
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)
is a laboratory campus of high energy physics. The
basic purpose of all experiments conducted here
is searching for the basic building stones of matter.
Moreover, decades of experiments at CERN are
working towards understanding all of the different
forces of nature within one framework which is
actually one of the ultimate goals of physics.
113 countries, 608 universities and 12000
researchers take part here. It is on the borderline
between France and Switzerland, some
laboratories are on France but most of them are
on Swiss part.
the most powerful magnifying glass because they are
smaller than the wavelenght of the “visible light”.
So, how can we ‘look’ inside the atom? To find out
what something is made of you might
A) look at it
B) heat it and see what happens
C) smash it by a strong force √
So that is why initially we call particle accelerators as
“atom smashers”.
• In huge accelerators we speed particles and smash
them into one another. By this way we are creating
– for a brief moment
– in a small region of space
– an intense concentration of energy
which replicates the nature of the universe as it was
within original Big Bang.
The particles discovered experimentally or defined
theoritically are shown
in the figure.
PHYSICS
DEPARTMENT
What Are We Made Of?
The drive of high-energy physics is curiosity; the
desire to know
• what we are made of
• where it came from
• why the laws of the universe are so finely balanced
that we have evolved2.
The fundamental structure of the atom is beyond
real imagination! Particle physics tries to show how
matter is built and explain where it all come from. But
we will never be able to see the particles even with
THE CLAPPER 2014 - 2015
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