The European Organization for Nuclear Research is the world's largest particle physics laboratory, situated just northwest of Geneva on the border between France and Switzerland. The convention establishing CERN was signed on 29 September 1954. From the original 12 signatories of the CERN convention, membership has grown to the present 20 member states. Its 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.
CERN currently has approximately 2600 full-time employees. Some 7931 scientists and engineers (representing 500 universities and 80 nationalities), about half of the world's particle physics community, work on experiments conducted at CERN.
As an international facility, the CERN sites are not officially under Swiss or French jurisdiction, and some company vehicles have diplomatic number plates. This includes the organization's fleet of fire trucks.
In figure 1,
Cern in Switzerland is the home of one of the biggest science experiments ever. It starts next year and will teach scientists loads about the universe.
In figure 2,
This 18-mile long tunnel is a key part of the experiment. Newsround's cameraman is filming it for the programme.
In figure 3,
Here's Lizo with another important part. Check out all this computing power. These scientists are experts, though - the internet was invented here!
In figure 4,
These giant wheel-like pieces of equipment are detectors. There are eight of them in use in this experiment.
In figure 5,
This is how big they are, compared to Lizo! Each one is 25 metres across.
