What really happens at CERN?
- Georgina Griffiths
- Apr 6, 2021
- 2 min read
CERN, or Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (European council for Nuclear Research), is situated at the France/Switzerland border and is the home to most notably the Large Hadron collider. As an organisation it was formed in the latter half of 1949. It is the birthplace of the world wide web as well as the confirmation of the existence of the Higgs-boson.
The world wide web was invented in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee. The process was exciting and a true turning point for society. The world wide web was created for everyone to be able to access on a large scale. To the same extent there was the intent to make it as cheap as possible. There were five main ideas which the main aims:
Decentralisation: Ability to freely post anything; i.e. freedom from censorship and surveillance
Non-discrimination: Internet service providers should allow anyone to use the internet. This is more commonly known as net neutrality.
Bottom-up design: The web is designed to make creating code readily accessible to everyone not the specific few who are highly trained.
Universality: All computers must use the same language, No matter the hardware the computers should be able to communicate.
Consensus: Everyone has to agree on the universal standards used.
Berners-Lee worked with CERN to ensure that the world wide web would be cheap and accessible to all. The Berners-Lee Web foundation still advocates for these same morals 30 years on from the birth of the web.
Another thing which has emerged from CERN is the affirmation of the existence of the Higgs-Boson. The theory behind the Higgs-Boson originated as an explanation to the nature and origin of mass by Peter Higgs (as well as a few other physicists). The Higgs Boson was confirmed through use of the Large Hadron Collider, a 17 mile long tube which is surrounded by 9,000 magnets which has the ability to get protons to zoom around the tunnel 11,000 times each second. In 2012 two teams at the LHC found data which indicated the existence of the Higgs Boson. The difficulty with the HB is that it only exists for a few moments before transforming into another particle.
The HB opens the door to a new type of matter which does not have any spin (which is "an intrinsic nature" of almost all particles). It also proves the power that maths holds in terms of proving the mysteries of the universe.
Overall CERN and the Large Hadron Collider is the home to many innovations which will define humanity in the future and now.
References:
CERN website, accessed 31/3/21, https://home.cern/about
"30 years of the web: a short history of the invention that changed the world", for British council, accessed 31/3/21 https://www.britishcouncil.org/anyone-anywhere/history-web
"How the Higgs Boson Was Found" by Brian Greene, for Smithsonian magazine, accessed 31/3/21, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-the-higgs-boson-was-found-4723520/
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