CERN: January 2020
CERN has been a place of pilgrimage for scientists from around the world since 1954 and, more recently, they have been joined by artists. A group of over twenty MAAS colleagues were privileged to spend four days in the company of our hosts, Michael Hoch and Andy Charalambous, exploring the site of the vast and the minuscule. We are grateful to them and to all the others who supported them in making the trip such a success.

Lake Geneva on the way in..

Presentation in the earliest particle accelerator at CERN

Michael Hoch, our guide on site

Where anti-matter was first observed – for the tiniest fraction of a second

Outside the public exhibition centre…

…and part of the ‘Star Trek’ exhibition inside

Exploring a section of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) re-constructed above ground

It’s not all high tech though. A gift from the Indian government

Michael leads us down 100m to the Compact Muon Solonoid Detector (CMS)

Selfie central in front of CMS where the Higgs Boson was discovered!

The bank of detectors surrounding the LHC where protons collide

Andy has been associated with CERN for many years. Here he poses with his work at the CMS site

Our visit was rounded off with a performance riffing on science vs belief at the IdeasSquare
All photographs © Phil Barton 2020
And the last word goes to Molly Mcleod responding to the trip in words and images: