CERN

In Geneva, we went to find CERN (European Centre for Nuclear Research) which was only a few k's from the motor show. In Sharon’s mind CERN was something that was made up by Dan Brown in his book ‘Angels and Demons’. After convincing her otherwise we rocked up to the visitors centre.

The European Centre for Nuclear Research - stand back!

Unfortunately there was no tour on that day but they had a great exhibition explaining what they are all about with special focus on what we’d especially come to see - the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This is one collossus of a particle accelerator - a 27 km ring buried 100m below Geneva and into France, which is going to be used to smash protons together to simulate what they think happened when the Big Bang occurred at the creation of our universe, pretty heavy stuff, but well explained and we had a great time wandering around the displays.

The LHC - a 27km ring 100m under the earth

Isn't it pretty?!

Inside the ring (it's actually a mock-up)

This is also where they "invented" the internet, so it was great to get a bit of a history lesson too.

Our heads came away more than a little mashed from that heavy dose of quantum physics and the like. We urgently had to go chill out at Evian, and head back to the snow...

My brain hurts - get me out of here!

You can read more about the the LHC at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider and pay special attention to the bit when they discuss the safety concerns, such as the impact on our planet of create a black hole... it's just like in Dan Brown's book!!