Microcosm or CERN Museum was an interactive exhibition presenting the work of the

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

laboratory and its flagship accelerator the

Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008, in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists, ...

(LHC). It first opened to the public in 1990 and closed permanently in September 2022, to be replaced by the ''Science Gateway'' in 2023. The final version of the exhibition opened in January 2016, developed by CERN in collaboration with Spanish design team Indissoluble.

History

The project was approved by the CERN Directorate in February 1988. The initial construction, to a large extent completed in 1989, was financed through contributions from the

Canton of Geneva The Canton of Geneva, officially the Republic and Canton of Geneva, is one of the Cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons of the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of forty-five Municipality, municipalities, and the seat of the governme ...

, the

Swiss Confederation Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerlan ...

, neighbouring

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, banks, and industrial firms. CMS life-size model at Microcosm exhibition

Main exhibits

The exhibition displayed many real objects, taking visitors on a journey through CERN's key installations, from the

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

bottle, source of the

proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , Hydron (chemistry), H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' (elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an e ...

s that are injected into the LHC, through the first step in the accelerator chain, the

linac A linear particle accelerator (often shortened to linac) is a type of particle accelerator that accelerates charged subatomic particles or ions to a high speed by subjecting them to a series of oscillating electric potentials along a linear bea ...

, on to a model of a section of the Large Hadron Collider including elements from the

superconducting magnet A superconducting magnet is an electromagnet made from coils of superconducting wire. They must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures during operation. In its superconducting state the wire has no electrical resistance and therefore can conduct much ...

s. Visitors could interact with the displays to try their hand at the controls of a

particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental ...

– simulating the acceleration of protons in the LHC and bringing them into collision inside the

experiments An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into Causality, cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome o ...

. The exhibition contained a 1:1 scale model of a complete slice through the CMS experiment at the LHC. The computing section displayed some of the

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

data tapes used to store the 30-40

petabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

s of data produced yearly by the experiments, made available for analysis using the LHC Computing GRID. The annex to the exhibition contained other historical artifacts such as the central tracker from the UA1 detector, which ran at the

Super Proton Synchrotron The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) is a particle accelerator of the synchrotron type at CERN. It is housed in a circular tunnel, in circumference, straddling the border of France and Switzerland near Geneva, Switzerland. History The SPS was d ...

at CERN from 1981 to 1984, and helped discover the

W and Z bosons In particle physics, the W and Z bosons are vector bosons that are together known as the weak bosons or more generally as the intermediate vector bosons. These elementary particles mediate the weak interaction; the respective symbols are , , an ...

Special projects

A project began in 2013 to preserve the original hardware and software associated with the birth of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

. This effort coincided with the 20th anniversary of the research center giving the web to the world.

Microcosm garden

The Microcosm garden is named Léon Van Hove Square in honour of CERN's Research Director-General from 1976 to 1980. The garden features several large components of old CERN experiments. Image:Microcosm_Garden.jpg, The garden view Image:Microcosm 0048.jpg, General view of the Detectors room Image:Microcosm 0017.jpg, Entrance to the exhibition Image:Microcosm 0031.jpg, Introduction to the particles room Image:Big_European_Bubble_Chamber.jpg, The Big European Bubble Chamber Image:LEP_RF.jpg, An RF cavity from the

Large Electron–Positron Collider The Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP) was one of the largest particle accelerators ever constructed. It was built at CERN, a multi-national centre for research in nuclear and particle physics near Geneva, Switzerland. LEP collided electr ...

Image:Microcosm_initial_accelerator.jpg, Initial stages of an old

Image:CERN-Introduction to the particles room.jpg, Particles room also features an interactive

cloud chamber A cloud chamber, also known as a Wilson chamber, is a particle detector used for visualizing the passage of ionizing radiation. A cloud chamber consists of a sealed environment containing a supersaturated vapor of water or alcohol. An energetic ...

- device capable of displaying normally undetectable traces of

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...

Image:Microcosm 0028.jpg, Measuring energy detector Image:Microcosm 0037.jpg, Detectors room Image:Microcosm 0006.jpg, DATA room Image:Microcosm 0011.jpg, LHC control room Image:UA1.jpg, The central section of the UA1 experiment on display at the Microcosm museum

Location

Microcosm was located at

in the

, Switzerland, near the town of

Meyrin Meyrin () is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. The main site of CERN, the European particle physics research organisation, is in Meyrin. Meyrin was originally a small agricultural village until the ...

. Entrance was free, without reservation, open 6 days a week.

References

External links

CERN Microcosm WebpageINDISSOLUBLE
{{authority control Science museums in Switzerland Museums in the canton of Geneva CERN