The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; French pronunciation: [sɛʁn]; Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Geneva, on the France–Switzerland border. It comprises 23 member states, and Israel (admitted in 2013) is currently the only non-European country holding full membership. CERN is an official United Nations General Assembly observer.Work out when and for how long to visit CERN and other Geneva attractions using our handy Geneva trip app.
The acronym CERN is also used to refer to the laboratory; in 2019, it had 2,660 scientific, technical, and administrative staff members, and hosted about 12,400 users from institutions in more than 70 countries. In 2016, CERN generated 49 petabytes of data.
CERN's main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research — consequently, numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN through international collaborations. CERN is the site of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. The main site at Meyrin hosts a large computing facility, which is primarily used to store and analyze data from experiments, as well as simulate events. As researchers require remote access to these facilities, the lab has historically been a major wide area network hub. CERN is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web.
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CERN reviews
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This was very very disappointing. This must be the most technologically advanced location on the planet but ironically, with the most archaic queuing system. To get in to the guided tour you must..... more
This was very very disappointing. This must be the most technologically advanced location on the planet but ironically, with the most archaic queuing system. To get in to the guided tour you must..... more »
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Highly recommended visit if you like science in any way. On their website there is all the information about the tour; it's free, and it's very likely that you won't get the start time you want...
Highly recommended visit if you like science in any way. On their website there is all the information about the tour; it's free, and it's very likely that you won't get the start time you want... more »
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Worth a visit if you have a mad scientist in the family. Not a great deal to see and the tour is only an hour, very informative though. You do come away having learnt something! Use your free travel card to get there via tram if staying in Geneva. Route 18.
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The guided tour needs to arrive at the reception one hour at least before. We lucky registered the guided tour. The guided tour is free. We visited points, the first one has a old model machine used in many years ago and the second is an operating detection station. Both visiting points have movies to introduce some interesting things.
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