Microcosm Exhibit

Today started out with an information session and then a team building exercise about our expectations of the program. It was explained to us that CERN has four major goals that it would like to achieve. These four key areas include advancing research, training scientists, the transfer of technologies to the outside world and getting people from all nations together.

CERN was a concept that evolved from the end of the second world war. Physicists, like Oppenheimer, who worked on the Manhattan Project were a bit disillusioned with their creation of the nuclear bomb. European physicists in particular needed a place that allowed them to conduct world class research, without having to move to the US or Russia. So a commitment was made by member states in Europe to create this amazing facility to help not only scientific research but make peace and stability in the region.

It feels a bit daunting walking passed the office of Nobel Laureates and many wonderful Physicists who have made such amazing contributions to the world, including the World Wide Web, which was created at CERN.

The exhibition we visited today was all about CERN and had some amazing old gadgetry and paraphernalia. Check out some pictures from the exhibit, which is free to visit, on my facebook group.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow, as we go down about 100 m underground to go and take a look at one of the particle detectors, LHCb, that is part of the Large Hadron Collider. Go to
http://lhcb.web.cern.ch/lhcb/News%20of%20pit8/Pictures/LHCbVirtualTour/cern.htm
to find out more about the detector.

Although it is nearly 9 pm, the sun has still not set, the beauty of a European summer!