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CERN: HADRON SUPER COLLIDER
Visit the Atom Smasher Tunnel in Geneva

The protons have started to circle through the Switzerland and France countryside and bang into each other after scientists finally managed to turn on the machine following its shut down a year ago. The CERN Large Hadron Super Conducting Super Collider in Geneva - recently featured in the movie - Angels & Demons, has finally gotten up and running. Now, we have only to wait and see it they create a black hole which would swallow the earth. Lots of people hadn't heard of CERN before the Hadron Collider project which is intended to look deeper into the creation processes of the “big bang” that ever before attainable, but the Hadron is only the most recent project at the CERN laboratory.

CERN, which stands for the the European Organization for Nuclear Research was first established in in 1954 as a joint European research center, located just north of Geneva in the suburb of Meyrin on the Swiss-French border. The Large Hadron Super Collider which makes a 2 kilometer diameter circle through the Switzerland and France countryside in a tunnel about 100 meters underground is only the most recent addition to a series of particle accelerators at the CERN Laboratory. It's a huge facility, rather like a large collegieate campus. CERN is also where the World Wide Web was born twenty years ago. They had a birthday party for the web back on March 13, of 2009. On that date in 1989 physicist Tim Berners-Lee handed a paper to his supervisor Mike Sendall entitled "Information Management : a Proposal". From that, an interconnecting of world wide computers for research communication, came your ability to read this story.

CERN offers a number of possibilities for visiting the facility. Individual tours or group tours can be arranged. Lectures and presentations are regularly given in the CERN’s iconic Globe of Science and Innovation, constructed as a venue for film showings, conferences, exhibitions and debates. Around the Globe, which is made of wood but has rather the look of a rusted golf ball stuck in the Earth in the light of day, but glows with ethereal energy when the sun goes down, is a replica of the Hadron tunnel and the departure point for tours of the site. It is suggested that tours are arranged a month or two in advance. Tours are of various themes, starting with an introductory presentation on CERN, followed by a film, and a visit to one of the experiments or to one of the above ground smaller accelerators. Tour itineraries depend on availability of the areas on the day of the tour. Tours are not allowed down into the actual Hadron Collider underground tunnels while it is in operation.

For spur of the moment visits to CERN, a museum space called the Microcosm is located in the reception visitor center, with multimedia exhibits of science and developments and experiments at the CERN Laboratory. The museum and reception is open from 8:15 to 5:45 Monday to Friday and 8:30 to 5pm on Saturday. The Microcosm is closed from 12-2. The Globe is only open after 2pm. Tours and museum admission are free.

The CERN laboratory campus is a twenty minute tram and bus ride from the Geneva main Cornavin train station. Take tram line 14 or 16 from the west side of the station to the end of the tram line and change to bus 56, which stops at the CERN reception building 33. Cost is 3 Swiss Francs. From the airport, take the bus number 28 from outside the airport to the Hôpital-La Tour stop in Meyrin, then the 56 bus. The International Airport of Geneva offers arriving passengers a free "Tout Geneve" ticket, which is good for public transport in the city of Geneva on the day of your arrival only, and must be accompanied by your boarding pass. Get it from the automatic ticket machine in the baggage reclaim area. By car, you can’t miss the Globe on the main road between the airport and the French border, the facility entrance on the other side of the road. © Bargain Travel Europe

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