Although scientists had been discussing the possibility of a European physics laboratory for some years, the idea was first voiced publicly in a message from the French physicist Louis de Broglie to the European Cultural Conference in Lausanne in December 1949. The initiative of setting up research organization for studying the nucleus of the atom was made by the French physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Louis de Broglie, in 1949. In Geneva in February 1952, eleven governments signed an agreement setting up a provisional 'Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire' — hence the acronym CERN, to be located at a site near Geneva. Its convention was ratified in 1954, and CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) and its first accelerator, a 600 MeV proton Synchrocyclotron, began operation in 1957. One of the first experiment achievements was the long awaited observation of the decay of a pion into an electron and a neutrino.
In 1960s, CERN was leading in neutrino physics benefiting greatly from fast ejection of protons from the synchrotron. The 28 GeV Proton Synchrotron commissioned in 1959 acted as the central hub and it provided an unparalleled variety of particle beams and research possibilities. CERN commissioned the Isotope Separator On-Line (ISOLDE) in 1967 for the study of very short lived nuclei.
The Intersecting Storage Rings came into operation in 1971 with remarkable smoothness, in advance of the schedule and within the authorized budget. The machine was a daring one when it was conceived but so thoroughly was the construction executed that the ISR is widely regarded as the most perfect example to date of the accelerator builder's art.
The most significant work started back in 1968 with the invention of multiwire proportional chambers and drift chambers that revolutionized the electronic particle detectors. Georges Charpak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992 for this work.
CERN began to gather its momentum with the construction of a seven kilometer Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) in the early 1970s, initially planned for energy 300 GeV. The interconnected, large facilities gave an edge to the particle physics experiments, the construction of the SPS expanded the activities of CERN in the French side, thus residing now at the border of the two countries.
In 1983, for the first time, a Data Communications (DC) Group was set up in the CERN computing division (then "Data-handling Division" or "DD") under David Lord. Before that time, work on computer networking in DD had been carried out in several groups.
In 1984, Carlo Rubbia and Simon van de Meer received the Noble Prize for Physics for their work, which culminated in the discovery of the W-boson and Z boson at CERN in 1983 – the long sought carriers of the weak nuclear force – confirmed the “electroweak” theory unifying weak and electromagnetic forces.
In 1981, the construction of the 27 kilometers long Large Electron Positron collider (LEP) ring started. It was the largest scientific instrument constructed at the time, for initial operating energy of 50 GeV per beam.
In 1990 the World Wide Web was invented at CERN to help particle physicists around the world to communicate. Now CERN is leading work to create a “computing Grid” that will harness vast amounts of computer power through networks across the world.
Brief history of Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (CERN)
