The largest instrument ever built for research begins operation

View of the Large Electron Positron Collider with its monorail, the little electric train that allowed the technical teams to move around the machine.
View of the Large Electron Positron Collider with its monorail, the little electric train that allowed the technical teams to move around the machine.

The Large Electron-Positron collider (LEP) is commissioned in July 1989. With its 27-km circumference, the LEP is the largest accelerator ever built. Fed by CERN’s accelerator complex, it provides particle collisions to four enormous detectors – ALEPH, DELPHI, L3, and OPAL.


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