A special high-level ceremony held at CERN capped off a year of celebrations across Europe and elsewhere
As part of its 70th anniversary celebrations, CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, is hosting today a special high-level ceremony attended by 38 national delegations, including heads of state and government from Bulgaria, Italy, Latvia, Serbia, Slovakia and Switzerland, and more Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Belgium and the President of the European Commission. In addition to national delegations, many scientific, political and economic leaders participate in the celebrations. The celebrations take place at the Science Gateway, CERN’s new center for education and popularisation, which aims to bring science to the general public.
This group of distinguished guests demonstrates the existence of strong support for CERN’s mission and ambitions. CERN is the world’s leading center for high-energy physics, a center for the development of advanced technologies, a platform for training and education, and a shining example of international cooperation.
“On this important day, it is a great honor to welcome representatives from our member, associate and observer states and our partners from around the world,” said Fabiola Gianotti, Director General of CERN. “CERN is a great success for Europe and its global partners. Our founders would be very proud of what CERN has achieved in its seven decades of existence. The goals and values that motivated them have remained firmly embedded in our organization to this day. These include the pursuit of scientific knowledge and technical development for the good of mankind, training and education, international cooperation, diversity and inclusion, knowledge, technology and education freely available to the public, and the determination to tread paths bordering on the impossible.”
CERN was born after World War II from the vision of several leading scientists and political leaders with the aim of returning top scientific research to Europe and supporting peaceful cooperation between states. With the building of ever more powerful accelerators and experiments came fundamental discoveries: among them was the discovery of neutral currents in 1973, W a Z bosons were discovered in 1983, extremely precise measurements of the Z boson and other parameters of the Standard Model were made in the 1990s at the accelerator LEP (Large Electron-Positron) a LHC (Large Hadron Collider) was launched in 2009 and Higgsov bozón was discovered in 2012. CERN has produced such inventions as the multiwire proportional chamber invented in 1968. CERN is also known as the birthplace of World Wide Web. Countless technologies invented at CERN are used today in other fields, including medical diagnostics, therapy and aviation. Currently, CERN has 24 member countries, 10 associate countries, 4 observer countries, many other partners from around the world and a living community exceeding 17 thousand people representing over 110 nationalities.
“CERN is living proof that human ingenuity knows no limits when it is focused on a common goal that transcends national borders,” said Eliezer Rabinovici, President of the CERN Council. “Celebrating 70 years of CERN, we celebrate the daring vision of the founding fathers. We appreciate the work of generations of CERN employees who have made possible breakthrough scientific and technical achievements that have led to the unraveling of nature’s secrets for the benefit of all mankind. CERN pushed Europe to the limits of human endeavour. I firmly believe that CERN will continue to carry this torch with the support of the European public and European leaders.”
The CERN community continues to work tirelessly to unravel the mysteries of the Universe. There is still much to learn about the Higgs boson, and many unknowns remain about how and why matter in the universe is what it is. 95% of the universe appears to us as dark, made up of forms of matter and energy that we cannot see or understand. The discoveries, observations and measurements made at CERN over the decades, including the recent ones at the LHC, are key to understanding the world we live in. The LHC has exceeded expectations, having already produced more data in its third run than it did in its entire second run, which ran from 2015 to 2018.
Engineers, physicists and technicians are already concentrating their attention on High-Luminosity LHCthe goal of which is to increase the volume of data obtained in experiments tenfold and thus significantly increase their physical potential after 2030. Looking further into the future, CERN is exploring the possibility of building a new device, called the Future Circular Collider, which could become the most extraordinary instrument ever built to study the fundamental laws of physics, and which could help solve many important fundamental questions.
The year-long annual program included more than 100 events organized in 63 cities in 28 countries and at CERN. These events made it possible for thousands of people to meet together to discuss open questions in physics and its future, on the link between basic research and cutting-edge researchme technologies, about the role of CERN as a shining model of international cooperation and also to how training, education and accessibility can improve inclusiveness in the world of science.
Source: www.nextech.sk
