Science 
CERN – the largest laboratory in the world
The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) is situated near Geneva (part of the installation crosses into French territory). It was founded in 1954 as a European joint venture, and now has 20 member states.
Its purpose is to enable scientists to study the elementary particles which make up everything in the universe. This is done by accelerating particles almost to the speed of light and making them collide. The huge particle accelerators are circular tunnels built underground.
The most ambitious experiment yet will be conducted using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) due to come into use in 2007. It lies about 100 m below the ground straddling the Swiss-French border, and has a circumference of about 27 km. Its purpose is to track down the elusive Higgs-Boson particle. This particle, whose existence was first predicted in 1954 but which has never yet been observed, would help explain how particles obtain their mass.
A particle detector developed by the PSI will be used in this experiment to enable scientists to «see» the particles produced.
Work at CERN has produced a number of spin-offs, of which the best known is the world wide web, originally designed to enable scientists to communicate more easily with each other.
(swissworld.org)