CERN

I feel like I've really lucked out with the weather this summer.  With the exception of a few days of rain here and there, the weather in Geneva has been picture perfect, which is good because so many of the activities around here only really work if you have pleasant weather for being outside.  Sadly this weekend was not one of those gorgeous weekends.  While it wasn't a total washout, we did have some pretty intense thunderstorms each day. 

Friday evening sunset was beautiful, but by the time these storms reached us it was a bit intense.

Saturday I was determined to get out and see something at least, so without risking paying a lot of money to get somewhere picturesque only to be chased inside by the thunderstorms, I decided to head out to CERN and see the exhibits they have there about particle physics and the Large Hadron Collider.

CERN actually stands for both the organization and the location, which comes from the French translation of European Council for Nuclear Research.  It was established in 1954 and actually runs across the Swiss/French border.  

While they do offer guided tours, they are booked out months in advance, so while that would be really cool, I'll have to save that for another time I'm in Geneva I guess.  This time I just stuck to the exhibits about the facility and particle physics itself.

The inside of the particle physics exhibit.  While it was really cool, I still think I would have to read over the materials a long time before I understand all this.

A diagram of the Large Hadron Collider, which is about 100m underground right where I was standing (slightly unsettling perhaps, but still really cool). Basically it accelerates particles to nearly the speed of light and then observes and records particle collisions at various points around the circle.  Although actually at the moment the collider is shut down while they strengthen the magnets.  

An overlay of the satellite map of the area and where the LHC is underground. 

Pretty much everything in this part of the museum is in 4 languages, which, while helpful, visually makes for a lot of text to sift through.

A cross section of one of the collision recorders

A model of what the LHC actually looks like underground

And of course who doesn't love interactive science displays

Unfortunately the weather didn't clear up much Sunday either. What started out as almost promising skies quickly deteriorated.

My gorgeous mountain views reduced to complete whiteout, strong winds and pouring rain.  Happy to be inside at this point.

I am a bit glad the weather forced me to make the trip out to CERN though, otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone out there on a clear gorgeous day, but it was really neat.  Now I'm down to just 2 weeks left in Switzerland, and armed with a to do list of a few more sights I apparently cannot miss.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate for the next two weekends and allow me to get those in!