What is CERN ?

CERN shares its knowledge openly. Gianotti used the analogy of the history of light to explain the role of fundamental, open-ended scientific research: if we had focused only on the business case for bigger and brighter candles, we would never have made the transformative leap to electrical lighting.

CERN costs the equivalent of a cappuccino a year per European

Science on this scale doesn’t come cheap: CERN’s annual budget for 2016 is 1.1 billion euros. However, as an Italian, Gianotti is keen to contextualise this in terms of frothy coffee.

The average layman may instinctively understand that such an experiment may be wrought with unforeseeable pitfalls. Stephen Hawking, the eminent physicist, seems to agree.

The God particle found by CERN could destroy the universe,” Hawking wrote in the preface to a book, Starmus, a collection of lectures by scientists.

More importantly, she explains that the rationale goes beyond economics, citing an exchange from the 70s between Bob Wilson, the founder of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory – a similar organisation to CERN – and US Congress. When asked, “What will your lab contribute to the defence of the US?”, he replied: “Nothing, but it will make it worth defending

The Higgs Boson could become unstable at very high energy levels and have the potential to trigger a “catastrophic vacuum decay which would cause space and time to collapse and… we would not have any warning to the dangers,” he continued.

Hawking is not the only voice in the scientific wilderness predicting possible catastrophe if CERN continues in the atomic fast lane.

At CERN, over 12,500 scientists from over 110 nationalities collaborate, working in a culture where authority comes from intellectual contributions rather than hierarchy, and colleagues generally share a sense of purpose.

Astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson told Eugene Mirman on his Star Talk radio program that the experiment could literally cause the planet to “explode.

Ask yourself: How much energy is keeping it together? Then you put more than that amount of energy into the object.” Tyson was confident of the result: “It will explode

In late 2008, when CERN was first firing up the engines on its atom-smashing machine, Otto Rossler, a German professor at the University of Tubingen, filed a lawsuit against CERN with the European Court of Human Rights, on the grounds that the facility could trigger a mini black hole that could get out of control and annihilate the planet.

The Court tossed out Rossler’s request, but he nevertheless succeeded in generating heated discussion on the possible dark side of the experiment.

A general view of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment is seen during a media visit to the Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the French village of Saint-Genis-Pouilly, near Geneva in Switzerland Pierre Albouy Reuters

pening the door to other dimensions
One year after CERN’s grand opening, Sergio Bertolucci, former Director for Research and Scientific Computing of the facility, grabbed headlines when he told a British tabloid the super collider could open otherworldly doors to another dimension for "a very tiny lapse of time,” mere fractions of a secon

In September, Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will smash together sub-atomic particles at nearly the speed of light, an unprecedented experiment that has some of the leading voices in the world of science - and religion - sounding the alarm on the risks involved.

However, that may be just enough time “to peer into this open door, either by getting something out of it or sending something into it.”

CERN is perhaps most famous for its discovery in 2012 of the elusive Higgs Boson [named after British physicist Peter Higgs who predicted its existence in 1964], the so-called ‘God particle,’ which allows other particles to build up mass as they pass through the Higgs field.

CERN’s curious choice of geographic location
Now on top of all the speculation as to what CERN scientists are really attempting to do with their Large Hadron Collider, many observers could not help but notice that the town in France where CERN is partially situated is called “Saint-Genus-Poilly.

10. CERN is the world’s biggest machine

Straddling the French-Swiss border, the $9 billion CERN collider complex is buried at a depth of up to 575 feet (175 meters).

CERN is perhaps most famous for its discovery in 2012 of the elusive Higgs Boson [named after British physicist Peter Higgs who predicted its existence in 1964], the so-called ‘God particle,’ which allows other particles to build up mass as they pass through the Higgs field.

The name Pouilly comes from the Latin “Appolliacum” and it is believed that in Roman times a temple existed in honor of Apollo, and the people who lived there believed that it is a gateway to the underworld. It is interesting to note that CERN is built on the same spot.

The tunnel complex runs along a 17-mile (27-kilometer) circuit. Scientists involved in the project say the laboratory was built underground because the Earth’s crust provides protection against radiation.

CERN is more famous – or perhaps infamous is the better word - for an upcoming experiment in which scientists will play God in an effort to recreate the conditions immediately following the ‘Big Bang’ event that gave birth to the Universe millions of years ago.

They also say it was buried out of respect for the natural landscape, which sounds slightly ironic considering the massive damage the collider could possibly cause down the road.