After watching the start of the Tour de France in the morning, we still found time to get to Geneva, Switzerland and nose around before our flight home the next morning. Our main destination was CERN, home to the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator. You made have heard of CERN from the movie Angels and Demons. This is where the main character, Robert Langdon, was employed. CERN is a massive facility with over 7000 scientists from around the world under its wing. Using its 17-mile long accelerator, it accelerates particles at near the speed of light and smashes them together creating high-energy conditions similar to those in the first instants of the Universe.
Another breakthrough they’re known for is the invention of the World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee created the first www server while working for CERN in 1989. It was originally designed to help particle physicists from around the world to communicate, but its uses have obviously gone well beyond that. After our fill of particle science, most of which was way over my head, we headed for dinner and a quick look in town. After that it was time to return the car and pack the bags for our long flight home.
This giant fountain sits in the Geneva harbor.
This is a map showing the territory the Large Hardon Collider (LHC) occupies. Inside the LHC, protons will make 11,245 revolutions and travel almost 200,000 miles every second.
On display at CERN is the first www server. The document next to it is a copy of “Information Management: A Proposal”, which was Berners-Lee’s original proposal for the World Wide Web.”
