Lidia Dragu
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Coming together to celebrate CERN70
This year has seen a wealth of activities for CERNâs 70th anniversary. More is to still to come, including the CERN70 Community Event on 17 September CERNâs 70th anniversary is a remarkable milestone, and celebrations at CERN and across Member and Associate Member States have been taking place since the official launch in January 2024.…
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The end of the alphabet
In 1983, CERN reached the end of the alphabet when the Laboratory announced the discovery of the long-sought W and Z particles. The announcement was so momentous that, the following year, the two scientists behind the discovery received the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1984, Carlo Rubbia, the instigator of the conversion of the Super…
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Exploring farther: machines for new knowledge
Over the past century, physics has unveiled the fundamental laws of nature and traced the Universeâs evolution back to the Big Bang. Yet, many mysteries remain, and numerous secrets are still hidden within the cosmos. At this sixth and final public event in the series celebrating CERN’s 70th anniversary, we will explore the future of…
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A first discovery
A few months after CERNâs first accelerator, the Synchrocyclotron (SC), was commissioned, a first experiment was launched. At the time, weak interactions were among the most hotly debated topics in high-energy physics. Scientists were puzzled, for example, about the decay of the particle known as the pion. The particle was known to decay into two…
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The dark side of the muon
In the 1950s, the muon was still a complete enigma. Physicists could not yet say with certainty whether it was simply a much heavier electron (with 200 times the mass) or whether it belonged to another species of particle. Acting on an idea of Leon Lederman, CERN launched the âg-2â experiment in 1959, aimed at…
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Tracing particles
In the 1960s and 1970s, two techniques for accurately recording the tracks of invisible particles dominated experimental high-energy physics, the bubble chamber and the spark chamber. The pictures produced â simple photographs â were then examined for interesting tracks by specially trained personnel, the âscannersâ. The bubble chamber programme at CERN started in 1959, when…
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Cutting-edge computing
CERNâs first computer, a huge vacuum-tube Ferranti Mercury, was installed in 1958. It represented the first stage in the evolution of digital computing at CERN. The next big step came in 1965, when the first supercomputer arrived: a CDC 6600 designed by computer pioneer Seymour Cray. This transistorised sub-microsecond machine was the first real ânumber…
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The nucleus as a laboratory
When the Isotope Separator On-Line (ISOLDE) began operations at the Synchrocyclotron (SC) in 1967, it was unique in the world. Like other laboratories, a proton beam from an accelerator was directed onto a target to create rare radioactive isotopes of various elements on the periodic table. But ISOLDE used an innovative technique to solve the…
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An electronic revolution
Georges Charpak received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Physics for his 1968 invention of the multi-wire proportional chamber, which revolutionised particle detection
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The worldâs first hadron collider
On 27 January 1971, the worldâs first collisions between two beams of protons occurred in CERNâs Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR). By the late 1950s, physicists knew that a huge gain in collision energy would become possible by colliding proton beams head on, rather than using a single beam and a stationary target. However, the price…