Interactions News Wire
#34-03
5/23/03
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Source:
CERN
Content: Press Release - Swiss President to visit CERN
Date
Issued:
5/23/03
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PR05.03
23.05.2003
Swiss
President to visit CERN
Pascal
Couchepin, President of the Swiss Confederation, will visit CERN on 4 June to
participate in the official inauguration of the underground cavern for the
laboratory's ATLAS experiment. As the first new experimental cavern to be
handed over to CERN by civil engineering contractors, this represents an important milestone
for the Laboratory.
CERN is currently building a new particle accelerator, the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Measuring 27km in circumference, the LHC will be
the world's largest and most complex scientific instrument when it switches on
in 2007. ATLAS, one of several experiments in preparation for the LHC,
will study proton-proton collisions produced by the new accelerator to investigate some of the
mysteries of our universe.
The ATLAS particle detector, 44 metres long and 22 metres
high, is being built by an international collaboration of around 2000 scientists
from 150 institutions in 34 countries around the world. The hand-over of
the cavern signals the start of installation for this enormous device. By
detecting the particles produced in around
800 million proton-proton
collisions per second, the detector will allow phys cists
to complete a journey that started with Newton's description of gravity.
Gravity acts on mass, but so far science is unable to explain why the
fundamental particles have the masses they have. Experiments at the LHC
should give us the answer. LHC experiments will also probe the mysterious
missing mass and energy of the universe - visible matter accounts for just 5% of
what we know must exist. They will investigate the reason for nature's
preference for matter over antimatter, and they will probe matter as it existed at the very beginning of time.
The hand-over ceremony will take place in the evening of 4
June. Speeches will be given by CERN Director General Luciano Maiani, President
of CERN Council Maurice Bourquin, Arturo Henniger, speaking on behalf of the
civil engineering consortium, ATLAS collaboration spokesman, Peter Jenni, and President Couchepin. The
President will
also visit
the cavern 90 metres underground, and tour preparations for the experiments ATLAS, CMS and
LHCb.
--------------------------------
Note : more info on :
the ATLAS experiment :
http://atlasexperiment.org/ the
LHC:
http://www.cern.ch/public/about/future/whatisLHC/whatisLHC.htmlCERN
:
www.cern.ch--
Renilde
Vanden Broeck
CERN - Press Office
CH-1211 Geneva 23,
Switzerland
Tel:+41 22 767 2141 Fax: + 41 22 785 0247
http://www.cern.ch/Press