CERN

CERN is the "Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire", or "European Organization for Nuclear Research". CERN, located on the France-Swiss border, near Geneva, It is the world's largest research centre for particle physics. CERN's efforts are now primarily focused on the construction and completion of the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC. The 27 kilometre particle accelerator/collider will become the world's most powerful. Using the LHC (to be completed in 2007) CERN hopes to set and study conditions very close to those shortly after the Big Bang. They hope to answer questions such as: "What is Mass? Are there extra dimensions? Are there violations between the symmetry of matter and antimatter?" Numerous CERN physicist have been awarded Nobel Prizes, and CERN is reconized as the creator of the World Wide Web. 20 countries currently contribute to CERN's efforts.