Microcosm (CERN)

Microcosm

Microcosm exhibition at CERN

MicrocosmorCERN Museumwas an interactive exhibition presenting the work of theCERNparticle physicslaboratory and its flagship accelerator theLarge Hadron Collider(LHC). It first opened to the public in 1990 and closed permanently in September 2022, to be replaced by theScience Gatewayin 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 theCanton of Geneva,theSwiss Confederation,neighbouringFrance,banks, and industrial firms.

CMS life-size model

Main exhibits

The exhibition displayed many real objects, taking visitors on a journey through CERN's key installations, from thehydrogenbottle, source of theprotonsthat are injected into the LHC, through the first step in the accelerator chain, thelinac,on to a model of a section of the Large Hadron Collider including elements from thesuperconducting magnets.Visitors could interact with the displays to try their hand at the controls of aparticle accelerator– simulating the acceleration of protons in the LHC and bringing them into collision inside theexperiments.

The exhibition contained a 1:1 scale model of a complete slice through theCMSexperiment at the LHC. The computing section displayed some of theOracledata tapes used to store the 30-40petabytesof data produced yearly by the experiments, made available for analysis using theLHC Computing GRID.The annex to the exhibition contained other historical artifacts such as the central tracker from theUA1detector, which ran at theSuper Proton Synchrotronat CERN from 1981 to 1984, and helped discover theW and Z bosons.

Special projects

A project began in 2013 to preserve the original hardware and software associated with the birth of theWorld Wide Web.Some of the original code resides onTim Berners-Lee'sNeXT Computerin the CERN museum and has not been recovered due to the computer's status as a historical artifact.This effort coincided with the 20th anniversary of the research center giving the web to the world.

Microcosm garden

TheMicrocosm gardenis namedLéon Van Hove Squarein honour ofCERN's Research Director-General from 1976 to 1980.The garden features several large components of old CERN experiments.

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  The garden view
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  General view of the Detectors room
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  Entrance to the exhibition
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  Introduction to the particles room
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  TheBig European Bubble Chamber
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  AnRF cavityfrom theLarge Electron–Positron Collider
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  Initial stages of an oldparticle accelerator
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  Particles room also features an interactivecloud chamber- device capable of displaying normally undetectable traces ofradiation
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  Measuring energy detector
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  Detectors room
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  DATA room
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  LHC control room
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  The central section of theUA1 experimenton display at the Microcosm museum

Location

Microcosm was located atCERNin theCanton of Geneva,Switzerland, near the town ofMeyrin.Entrance was free, without reservation, open 6 days a week.

External links

• CERN Microcosm Webpage
• INDISSOLUBLE