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China is planning the world’s largest particle collider to rival CERN

2024-06-26T17:18:00-04:00

China’s plan to construct what would be the world’s new largest particle collider, pending major funding hurdles, is becoming more clear after a technical design report was submitted for the estimated $5.2 billion project. The 100-kilometer Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is meant to rival CERN’s plans for the Future Circular Collider (FCC) in Europe and would require only three years to complete following its potential commencement in 2027.

Scientific American informs us: “Many of the components that are planned for China’s mega machine are already being tested at other facilities in the country [...] Given that China is already home to a collider that is similar to the CEPC — the Beijing Electron Positron Collider — [and] IHEP might now have more expertise in this area than does CERN.”

Renzo Piano completes CERN's new Science Gateway project in Geneva

2023-10-13T15:13:00-04:00

Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) has shared photos following the inauguration of its new CERN Science Gateway project in Geneva, Switzerland.

The project for clients at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (or CERN) was realized in collaboration with the local studio Brodbeck Roulet Architectes Associés and offers the agency room for an expanded education and outreach program capable of handling between 300,000 and 500,000 visitors annually.

Image © CERN

The project’s design is inspired by the tubing integral to CERN’s famed Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator and houses two new laboratories, three small exhibition areas, a 900-seat auditorium, shop, and restaurant in a footprint totaling just over 75,000 square feet. A bridge suspended 20 feet above the ground connects the five separate spaces. RPBW says it also establishes a central metaphor as the “link between science and society.”

Image © CERN

More than 400 trees were planted in order ...

Stand on the shoulders of giants as CERN's architect in residence

2015-02-05T15:40:00-05:00

A year before discovering the Higgs boson, aka “God”, particle, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) established its own arts residency. Formed in 2011, the Collide@CERN program pairs artists with CERN physicists in Geneva to collaborate on art and research projects, banking on the idea that artistic experimentation and theoretical physicists are both ultimately concerned with the same thing: "both are ways to explore our existence – what it is to be human and our place in the universe,” according to program director Ariane Koek. The first collaboration between artist Julius von Bismarck and theoretical physicist James Wells was so fruitful that CERN developed Accelerate@CERN in 2013, which enables a country to set up and sponsor a specific "Research Stay" within CERN’s labs. Now, Austria is looking for an architect to work at CERN.

What does this entail? For one month of pure research, an architect will be paired with a CERN physicist – to work, think, and ideate to...