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CERN Accelerating science

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CERN Accelerating science

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Meet our guides: dominique, exhibitions, discover cern, our universe, quantum world, more activities.

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Public events at CERN are organised with the support of the CERN & Society Foundation

CineGlobe 2024 - Opening night: Universe in a Grain of Sand

Cineglobe 2024 - cinéma improv, cineglobe 2024 - table ronde : ce que l’art amène à la science, cineglobe 2024 - immersive art-science night, cineglobe 2024 - awards ceremony, cern70 public event: cern - an extraordinary human endeavour, cern70 public event: the case of the (still) mysterious universe, cern70 public event: exploring farther - machines for new knowledge, cern70 official ceremony: inspiring the future.

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CERN – Globe de la science et de l’innovation Esplanade des Particules 1 1217 Meyrin

Discover the largest particle physics laboratory in the World. There are many options to visit this giant of science. Two permanent exhibitions, guided tours and a cycle route engage you in the discovery of particle physics.

General information

In the Universe of Particles exhibition, explore the issues CERN's physicists are trying to solve: given that the entire universe is made of particles, where do they come from? Why do they behave in the way they do? Discover the massive apparatus used by physicists at CERN and how the developed technologies impact your everyday life at the Microcosm exhibition. Interview engineers and physicists on their daily job. And if you have more time on site, follow the LHC circuit at ground level with the Passport to the Big Bang cycle path, to understand in situ this giant machine. Guided tours available by reservation only.

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Conference rooms, globe of science and innovation - 1st floor, discover the surroundings.

CERN – Globe de la science et de l’innovation Esplanade des Particules 1 1217  Meyrin Switzerland

CERN – Globe de la science et de l’innovation Esplanade des Particules 1 1217 Meyrin Show Route

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CERN Accelerating science

Find below the answer to frequently asked questions. Should you not find the information you are looking for, do not hesitate to  contact us .

Preparing for your visit

CERN visits are free of charge, whether they are guided tours, exhibitions, labs, science shows or public events. Do not pay any third parties who claim that CERN is charging them.

Only if you take part in a guided tour, as some tours may take place on both sides of the Swiss-French border.

Yes. A paid car park is available next to the Globe of Science and Innovation. The bus parking available before the car park is reserved for groups with a booking. More details on our dedicated page .

No, but CERN can be reached by  public transport  and taxi. CERN is located 5.5km away from Geneva airport and 9.4km from Geneva Cornavin train station. Those arriving at Geneva airport can get bus and tram ticket from the machine in the baggage collection area of the arrivals hall. For further details please click here .

Our Resources menu  provides numerous resources for you to learn more about CERN before your visit.

French and English. Some of the team members also speak other languages.

Accessibility

Yes. There are seating areas in the exhibitions and you can borrow a wheelchair or a folding stool in the reception area upon availability. Click here for more information about accessibility .

While pets are not generally permitted on site, guide dogs for the visually impaired are welcome. Please inform the Reception personnel when you arrive.  Click here for more information about accessibility

Families and individual visitors

Families, individual visitors and small groups (less than 12 visitors) do not require prior booking. Simply show up at Reception, register on out web app, exclusively available on site, and off you go. More information here .

Booking is not required for families and individual visitors. Access to exhibitions, science shows and films (when available) is free within capacity limits. Guided tours and lab workshops can only be booked on site.  A dedicated page explains why .

Group bookings (12 visitors and more)

If the date you want cannot be selected, it means that we cannot take any more groups on this date.

CERN receives twice as many requests as it has places available , so you are advised to book your tour as early as possible. Group (12 visitors and more) booking are opened 9 monts in advance and slots fill up in days.

Some of the places visited on guided tours are a long way from the CERN Reception (up to 15 km away). It is therefore important to organise transport. CERN has a limited number of coaches/minibuses to transport visitors. If you have your own coach/minibus, we will use it during the tour to travel between the visit points. Please make sure that the driver is aware of this and is prepared to drive you. Please note that the use of private cars is not allowed. Only coaches/minibuses (with 20 to 50 seats) are allowed to bring tour parties onto our sites.

You can request for your group to have lunch in one of CERN’s on-site cafeterias at the registration time. This request has to be accepted by CERN Visits service as we have limited capacity. You will be informed quickly of the decision.

If you omitted to request for this option, please contact us and provide your group booking reference number.

If your request has been accepted, and about 2 weeks before your visit, CERN Visits Service will assign you the restaurant and the time which suits the best your programme. You will be informed of the restaurant and the time your group has been assigned to at your arrival at CERN Science Gateway reception.

Please note that it is not possible to change the restaurant nor the time assigned to your group. Refrain from contacting any CERN restaurants' management directly (unless instructed by us).

Cost for a meal in CERN restaurants vary from around 10 CHF to 20 CHF depending on the restaurant and the meal. Payments are possible in cash in CHF and EUR (but change is always returned in CHF) or by most credit/debit cards.

No. As the applicable laws differ from one country to another, CERN is unable to provide a standard risk assessment document. A medical service and fire brigade are based on the Meyrin site, and strict safety rules are in place to protect everyone working at or visiting CERN.

Connect to  http://myguidedtours.cern.ch  with your login, select the request and click on Cancel the visit  in the Other actions menu at the top.

Please submit a request using the contact form , quoting the reference number of your request. This number can be found in the automated e mails that have been sent to you and on the myguidedtours.cern.ch website.

Only if you have requested a guided tour as the visitors will enter the CERN fenced sites.

Once your guided tour request has been approved, you will be given access to a form available on myguidedtours.cern.ch to provide details of all the members of your party (first name, last name, nationality, date and place of birth).

If you have not requested a guided tour, the list of visitors is not required.

Make sure you enter only unaccented Latin characters, as shown in the machine-readable part of your identity document.

No. You can save the form and come back later to enter additional information. All visitors' details must be provided within 48 hours in the case of individual guided tours or at least 21 days before the guided tour in the case of group guided tours, otherwise visitors whose details are incomplete will be removed from the tour booking.

Yes, you are welcome to inform us of any changes, up to one day before the guided tour. No updates are possible on the day before the guided tour as this is when we need to print visitors' cards. You can inform the Reception staff of any last-minute changes when you arrive.

As soon as you arrive at the CERN Reception, please inform us of any last-minute changes. You will be requested to provide details of all visitors whose information has changed or who are not attending. Please note that the time needed to provide this information may reduce the duration of your guided tour. You are therefore advised to inform us of any changes online, up to one day before the guided tour.

No. Only the number of visitors registered on myguidedtours.cern.ch will be allowed to take part in the guided tour. Any visitors who have not been registered may visit the permanent exhibitions during the guided tour.

This information is not mandatory before your arrival, but you will have to provide it when you arrive at the CERN Reception at the latest. Make sure that you have this information with you.

No. The CERN logo is the property of CERN, and its use on any item produced by an external organisation is not permitted under any circumstances, including in the context of a school visit. However, the use of phrases such as “Visit to CERN, Geneva, Switzerland” is acceptable.

Yes, but availability is limited. School groups visiting CERN may apply to stay in the CERN hostel if all the members of the group are at least 16 years of age and have already been registered for a guided tour by the Visits Service. Teachers will be responsible for the group throughout the stay and must remain in the hostel with the pupils at all times. One teacher is required for every 10 pupils. Bookings cannot be made more than 90 days in advance of the tour and are limited to a maximum of three nights. Please note that no bookings are possible in June, July, August or September.

For all hostel bookings, please contact: CERN Hostel once your guided tour has been confirmed by the Visits Service.

Many school groups use the Geneva youth hostel . You can also find hotels nearby on Google Maps .

On-site services

Yes, CERN provides 321 lockers for free. Luggage is not permitted in our premises. All lockers must be emptied at 17.30 at the latest. A limited number of lockers can contain up to cabin-size luggage. Larger items are not allowed at CERN. We invite you to leave larger items in your coach or at your hotel. Luggage storage facilities are also available at Geneva airport and the  Cornavin train station .

Yes. The Big Bang Café welcomes you from 08.00 to 17.00. Selected groups with a booking will also be allowed to access the CERN restaurants inside fenced domain.

Yes. Free public Wi-Fi is available in and around CERN’s main buildings. Connect to CERN-Visitors Wi-Fi, and open a web browser to access our exclusive web app to register and get access to CERN Science Gateway. Should you need to access Internet, you will have to register your phone fully with a code.

Yes, the souvenir shop in the Reception area sells books, educational items, games, clothes and gifts. More information can be found here . Please note that the shop and reception close at 18:00, so set aside enough time for your shopping.

Depending on the restaurant assigned and menu chosen, a lunch cost between 15 CHF and 30 CHF. Swiss franc and euro banknotes are accepted. Change is always given in Swiss francs. CERN Restaurants accept all major credit and debit cards.

Not publicly accessible. Only groups granted restaurant access will be able to use the ATMs inside the fenced part of the site. The CERN shop accepts most credits cards .

Yes, most cards are accepted . You can also pay in cash using Swiss francs or euro notes. However, change is given in Swiss francs only.

Exhibitions

Yes, like all outreach activities at CERN, exhibitions are accessible free of charge.

Only if you are a group (12 visitors and more). Group bookings are available here .

For individual visitors, families and small groups, an onsite registration on our web app exclusively accessible onsite is the only registration needed to access freely the exhibitions and other activies. See more here .

The exhibition welcomes visitors of all ages, although it is best enjoyed by ages 8+.

The exhibitions are designed to be self-visited. But guides, recognisable with their red jacket, will be present in exhibiitions should you have a question. Don’t hesitate ask them.

Guided tours

Tours are conducted exclusively by members or former members of the CERN personnel, who give tours on a voluntary basis.

Tours last between one and a half hour (tours for individuals and families) and up to three hours (tours for groups). It is not possible to leave a tour before it ends.

Underground tours are extremely rare and limited to smaller groups. The LHC tunnel is never accessible to visitors. Only the experiment caverns can be visited during LHC shutdowns. But there are plenty of interesting places to visit above ground! The final tour programme is decided at the last minute to take operational and safety constraints into account and cannot be confirmed in advance.

Find our more on our dedicated page .

Yes, CERN has no secrets and you can photograph or film anything you wish throughout your visit, as long as you do not violate the privacy rights of individuals.

Visiting CERN – 11 Tips That Will Help You Make the Most of the Hadron Collider Tour

• By Traveling Anne
• February 28, 2024
• In Europe Travel Destinations

As promised in my French Alps trip report , here's a more detailed review of our excellent visit to CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. There are several tips I want to share as well, about what we did right and what we could have done better.  Read through if you are thinking of visiting CERN so you can make the most of your time there.

What is CERN all about?

You may occasionally see the name Cern, not as an acronym. It's not the name of a town or a village though. Rather, it's an acronym for a long title in French:  Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire.  Which translates into: The European council for nuclear research. I will be using CERN and Cern interchangeably throughout this post because these days it's both a place and a concept.

The council was established back in 1954 in an effort to promote scientific collaboration between the nations of Europe, at the time still licking their proverbial and literal wounds of the second world war. They were allocated an area near Geneva where the CERN project was established on (and under) the ground. The name of the initiative has since changed into the  European Organization for Nuclear Research but it's still known as Cern (and not as EONR, thankfully).

There have been many amazing discoveries made in CERN over the years, some of which have lead to nobel prizes in physics and chemistry. It is best known for its huge particle collider, aka the Hadron Collider.

There are several underground looped tunnels where sub-atomic particles are accelerated in phases and then enter the largest loop of all: the Hadron collider. Beams of particles are made to smash into one another at specific stations within the collider and the results are recorded to be further analyzed by scientists across the globe. It really is an amazing feat of human ingenuity. That makes visiting CERN an uplifting experience for all, not just science buffs.

Visiting CERN: Can you actually visit the Hadron Collider?

Yes and no. You can visit Cern and be above the collider. The main road which runs through the main complex that surrounds the main research station - known as The Atlas Project - is open to the public. There is a visitors center there which includes two permanent exhibitions -

Microcosm - The story of collider and how it works, as well as a little bit about what life in Cern is for the 10,000+ scientists and engineers who work there.

In addition to the exhibitions, there is a guided tour that takes you "behind the scenes". I have seen photos of people wearing helmets and looking at what appears to be part of the collider. During our own visit, the guide explained that they do not take visitors down to the collider because the levels of radiation there are not safe.

So, no, we did not get to see the actual collider. We did get to see several models and hear a LOT about it. Considering its actual size (about 27 kilometers long!) I don't see how you can actually "see" more than a very small part of it going underground. Either way, you can't see it "working". According to our guide (who was also a physicist and a shift leader at Cern) there's not much to be seen. The particle beam is silent and invisible.

Who should be visiting CERN?

Cern is a must-visit for anyone who loves science and specifically physics. The exhibitions are thorough and our guide was a professional physicist who could answer all of the questions thrown at him by our group's science buffs.

Even if you're not into physics, I think the tour would be enjoyable. The exhibitions are interactive and exciting and there is something very moving about the entire project: European nations working together to promote science and peace.

And finally...

11 quick tips that will help you make the most of your visit

1. book the tour.

The tour is entirely free and it gets you that unique "behind the scenes" look into the project. Our guide was fascinating and it was really cool to walk past these gates:

The tour also takes you to a special exhibition with a 20 minutes long multimedia show projected on the walls and on the equipment around you. Really cool and great fun for kids.

2. Guided tours fill up really fast

They open up for registration 15 days ahead of the date, in the morning (Switzerland time) and as far as I could see, registration closes within a couple of hours. They re-open three days ahead of the date for latecomers and I guess if there are no-shows, you can try and wriggle your way into a group.

3. Be prepared to take pictures on the guided tour

With all the fences and guards, we thought they may ask us not to take pictures. Quite the opposite. Our guide said they want us to take as many pictures as possible! Keep your camera ready during the tour because photo-ops pop up literally as you walk around while visiting CERN. Like taking pictures of street signs -

4. Be prepared for a long visit

This isn't a place you can run through in 20 minutes. The exhibitions alone are well-worth 1-2 hours (possibly longer if you are interested in physics). The tour takes up another two hours of your time. All in all, three hours is the bare minimum. We spent five hours at Cern and could have stayed for longer if we had more time.

5. Check for opening hours

There are different opening hours for the exhibitions. The visitors center and the Microcosm exhibition open at 8:30. The Universe Of Particles opens at 10. There are several time slots for the guided tours. Check your times and make sure you allocate at least an hour for each exhibition and 2 hours for the tour (including showing up 15 minutes in advance to get your badges). The good news is that everything is close-by, so it only takes a couple of minutes to get from one exhibition to the other.

6. Bring your own food

Google maps knows of a couple of cafeterias at Cern which we had planned on checking out. Nothing quite like enjoying a croissant while rubbing shoulders with a local version of Sheldon Cooper, right? I thought this would add to our "Visiting CERN" experience.

As it happens, these cafeterias are out of bounds for us mere mortals. The only way to get a coffee or any food is at the local gas station. It's very close to the visitors center, so not a long walk, but the prices are quite Swiss (i.e. expensive!) and the food quality is nothing to write home about - basically what you'd expect to find in a gas station store. They do have a really cool espresso machine that generates so much steam while making your coffee, you might think they're running it through the Hadron collider itself!

7. Eat and drink before the tour

If you didn't bring anything to eat, grab something - anything - at that gas station. The tour isn't short and you can't eat or drink anywhere during the tour. You also can't leave the tour once you started because you have to be accompanied by the guide when inside Cern. So -especially if you're traveling with kids - make sure everyone is well fed before you start the tour.

8. Wear comfortable shoes and dress according to the weather

The guided tour has you walking about one mile on foot. Not too bad but enough to be more enjoyable with comfortable shoes. You will be walking outside for a short bit as well, so if it looks like it might rain, gear up accordingly.

9. Park near the big dome

There's plenty of parking, or at least there was on the day of our visit, but you can't just park anywhere. The best place for you to park would be next to the big brown dome. Just east of the dome, towards the Swiss side of Cern, there is a big parking lot that's free to park at.

10. Watch a movie about the project before visiting CERN

I wanted to get our kids acquainted with Cern before we came and to be honest, I didn't know a whole lot about it other than that's where they had recently discovered the Boson-Higgs and that people were afraid they might create a black hole in the process, swallowing up the entire earth (which turned up to be a slight exaggeration).

The movie we watched was available on Netflix. It's called "Particle Fever" and you can buy or rent it on Amazon too .

11. Don't worry about the language barrier

Cern is technically in both Switzerland and France (the border runs in the middle) but everyone there speaks English. More importantly, the exhibitions all have English labels or English narration options and the guided tour is available in English. That's not something you typically find in French science (or other) museums so it's worth mentioning here.

And one last tip...

12. Have fun!

Visiting CERN is fun! There's a lot of humor to be found in the exhibitions. Lots of red buttons to push and see whether you actually create a black hole that can swallow up the entire earth. It hasn't happened to us but who knows, you might just get lucky!

Have you ever visited Cern? Got any tips to add? Please share those in the comments section below. You can also leave me questions about visiting CERN and I'll try and give you the best answer I can.

Awesome tips i will give 5 out of 5 stars for these tips i totally loved it.❤

Thank you so much, Asher!

Is it possible to use photo in the chapter 3? I am writing a post for students and schoolchildren and I need photo like that.

Check your email 🙂 I sent you an email with a couple of questions so we can take it from there.

Thanks for the info. Our rental auto does not permit us to drive into Switzerland. Do you know if there is ample free car parking on the French side and we can just walk 5 minutes to Reception?

Hi Paul, I couldn’t find the answer on their website so I emailed Francois Briard, head of CERN’s Visits center who has visited and commented on this post before 🙂 He was very prompt and helpful but unfortunately the answer is that there is no available parking space on the French side that’s within walking distance from the visitors center. He added that you shouldn’t count on parking by the side of the road because French commuters have these filled up by 8AM. His suggestion was to get bus Y line from Saint-Genis-Pouilly and that can drop you at the CERN bus stop. I hope this helps! Enjoy your visit to CERN!

Thanks for the very accurate and useful tips! Our website has been rebranded a bit giving even more information.

François, head of CERN’s Visits Service 😉

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, François! I’m glad you liked my post!

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Is This the Nerdiest Thing You Can Do in Switzerland?

Cern, the nuclear physics science center where the world wide web was invented and the higgs boson was discovered, is open to the public for free. and it’s awesome..

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The Globe of Science and Innovation houses an exhibition, and the ribbon-like steel sculpture in front is laser-cut with 396 great physics discoveries through the ages.

Photo by Billie Cohen

Switzerland is known to travelers for many good reasons: chocolate, cheese, mountains, lakes. But “world’s largest particle physics laboratory” isn’t really at the top of their minds. Nor is the fact that they can visit that lab for free, just 25 minutes outside of Geneva. In fact, I’d argue that a visit to CERN is one of the coolest—and, admittedly, nerdiest—things you can do in Switzerland.

What is CERN?

CERN ( Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire in French, or European Council for Nuclear Research) is an internationally run science center that straddles the border of Switzerland and France.

This place is a pretty big deal: It’s where the world wide web was invented in 1989, where antimatter was discovered, and where the so-called God particle (aka the Higgs boson) was identified in 2012, validating scientists’ model for how the subatomic world works. As a result, a lot of what we know about atoms and the universe—and I guess, cat memes—can be attributed to the work done here.

For nerds of various stripes, this is all major—as is the fact that CERN’s campus is the home of the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator, a 16.8-mile underground track where the world’s most brilliant minds smash tiny, speeding particles together to see what they can learn.

“What astronomers do with telescopes, we do with particle detectors,” said CERN’s head of media relations, Arnaud Marsollier, in a webinar last week. “When we look at the universe, we understand only 5 percent of it. The other 95 percent, which is dark matter or dark energy, we don’t know what it is. We know it’s there’s—we have proof of that—but we don’t know what it is. So this is exactly why we are experimenting further.”

CERN is also a rare example of successful international collaboration: A group of 23 member states manage CERN today , and more than 12,000 scientists from 110 countries use the facilities and research developed here.

The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built; it’s made of a 27-kilometer-long ring of superconducting magnets in a tunnel 100 meters underground at CERN.

Courtesy of CERN

What kind of nuclear research is going on here?

The word nuclear in CERN’s title doesn’t have to do with nuclear warheads or weaponry at all. In fact, CERN was founded after World War II by a consortium of European countries with the mission to bring scientists together to use their intelligence for peace rather than bombs. As CERN’s convention states : “The Organization shall have no concern with work for military requirements and the results of its experimental and theoretical work shall be published or otherwise made generally available.”

So why is the word nuclear in CERN’s title then? Because at the time of CERN’s founding, physics research was focused on understanding the inside of atoms—or the nucleus—and it was called “nuclear.” Today, that area of study is known as particle research. CERN develops technologies in three areas: particle accelerators, particle detectors, and computing. And the scientists here aim to answer questions including:

• What is the unknown 95 percent of the mass and energy of the universe?
• Why is gravity so weak compared to other forces?
• Why is the universe made only of matter, with hardly any antimatter?
• Is there only one Higgs boson, and does it behave exactly as expected?

In the process, their efforts have concrete, real-world applications for daily life. For example, accelerator technologies are used in cancer radiotherapy, and other tech helps with innovations in 3D color X-ray imaging and PET-scan imaging and diagnostics.

Is it safe to visit? Yes. However, over the years, some have raised concerns about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) creating microscopic black holes (it can’t) or emitting cosmic rays. So the center’s website offers detailed explanations to assuage any fears, explaining, for example, “The Universe as a whole conducts more than 10 million million LHC-like experiments per second. The possibility of any dangerous consequences contradicts what astronomers see—stars and galaxies still exist.”

Renzo Piano designed CERN’s new Science Gateway; its tubular structure references the track of the Large Hadron Collider, and the forest planted around it suggests the connection between science and nature.

What can visitors can do and see at CERN?

The most innovative thing about this manicured, sprawling science mini-town is that everything the scientists do here is completely public. All of their research is accessible to everyone—and so is the campus. Free guided tours are offered in English and French and led by CERN staffers, such as physicists, engineers, and technicians. On the tours, guests can view the facility’s first particle accelerator, the synchrocyclotron, installed in 1957, and also peep into the control room that oversees the ATLAS experiment, which helped identify the Higgs boson in 2012. When I visited, my tour guide proudly stated, “Nothing is hidden.”

This month, CERN added another way for the public to engage with its work: a new exhibition and education center, dubbed the Science Gateway , designed by starchitect Renzo Piano. (He’s also responsible for New York’s new Whitney Museum, Paris’s Centre Pompidou, London’s Shard, and another Swiss beauty, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern.)

“This will be a place where people meet: kids, students, adults, teachers and scientists, everybody attracted by the exploration of the Universe, from the infinitely vast to the infinitely small. It is a bridge, in both a metaphorical and a real sense. This building is fed by the energy of the Sun, landed in the middle of a newly grown forest,” Piano said in a press release about the opening.

On the outside, the building looks like two parallel tubes connected by a bridge—a nod to CERN’s accelerators—and is carbon neutral, thanks to 4,000 square meters of solar panels. More than 400 trees were also planted around it, creating the effect that it’s floating above a forest.

Inside, the Science Gateway has three exhibitions (Discover CERN, Out Universe, and Quantum World), and it hosts science shows in a theater and hands-on workshops (for school groups as well as for individual visitors). There are also public events, like the upcoming Dark Matter Day with a talk by Nobel Prize–winning astronomer Michel Mayor (November 3) and a live performance of The Infinite Monkey Cage podcast featuring physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince (January 12).

Visitors can see CERN’s first particle accelerator, the synchrocyclotron, installed back in 1957.

How to visit

CERN is a 25-minute tram ride from Geneva’s city center, and some hotels may even offer free transport cards.

The Science Gateway ‘s exhibitions are open Tuesday–Sunday 9 a.m.–5 p.m. (reception opens at 8 a.m.). Tours can be booked at the Science Gateway on a first-come, first-served basis.

Top ways to experience CERN and nearby attractions

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

CERN - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)

• Tue - Sun 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
• (4.74 mi) Swiss Luxury Apartments
• (4.82 mi) Hotel d'Angleterre
• (1.40 mi) Ibis St Genis Pouilly Geneve
• (4.91 mi) Hôtel Les Armures
• (3.10 mi) Jiva Hill Resort
• (0.01 mi) Big Bang Café
• (0.21 mi) Nirvana
• (0.23 mi) Restaurant Le Smash
• (0.41 mi) Restaurant Don Pedro 1951
• (0.41 mi) Da Vinci
• (0.01 mi) CERN Science Gateway
• (0.83 mi) Alpytransfers
• (4.66 mi) Local Flavours Tours
• (4.36 mi) Trip Trap Escape
• (4.49 mi) La Traque

CERN Accelerating science

Language switcher, guided tours for individuals (less than 12 people), come and discover an emblematic site at cern in a visit led by our official guides. mandatory registration onsite..

Every year, CERN welcomes almost 100 000 visitors from all over the world, who come to learn about its installations from our official guides. Guided tours of CERN are free of charge.

The meeting point for tours is the CERN Reception How to get to CERN

Mandatory registration at the main desk, upon availability and maximum 2 hours in advance. No online registration.

https://visit.cern/guided-tours-individuals

Offres similaires

Virtual tours and talks, lab workshops, public events at science gateway campus.

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CERN Accelerating science

• how do i visit cern

How do I visit CERN?

CERN has a rich educational and cultural programme. As an integral part of this programme, tours of the Laboratory are free of charge.

Find out more about CERN tours via visit.cern , which includes frequently asked questions about CERN tours .

How to get to CERN .

Preparing for your CERN visit

Will CERN generate a black hole?

Is the large hadron collider dangerous, cern answers queries from social media.

CERN Accelerating science

Discover online

Discover us online, discover cern online, virtual tours and talks, globe of science and innovation, science gateway.

CERN Accelerating science

Collaboration Site | Physics Results

ATLAS Visits

How to visit in person.

To schedule an onsite visit to the ATLAS experiment, please contact the CERN Visits Service .

The ATLAS Visitor Center has a permanent exhibit with interactive screens outside the Control Room and a 3D movie which explains how the detector works and why the collaboration pursues its quest for fundamental knowledge. CERN also has two permanent exhibitions Universe of Particles and Microcosm that provide unique experiences in understanding the secrets of matter and exploring the mysteries in our universe.

ATLAS Virtual Visits

How to visit remotely.

An ATLAS Virtual Visit connects a classroom, exhibition or other public venues with scientists at the experiment using web-based video conferencing. It is a chance for you to have a conversation with the scientists working on ATLAS.

Group Visits

For groups of at least 10 visitors, you can schedule a Virtual Visit by completing this form.

Open Visits

We also schedule periodic visits for individuals or small groups to join. You can see a list of upcoming Open Virtual Visits here . Select the one you want and register.

ATLAS Virtual Tours

Explore atlas virtually.

Take a virtual tour around the ATLAS detector in the cavern, located around 80 meters below ground at interaction point 1 of the LHC. Alternatively, walk around the detector and control room using Google's street view .

CERN Accelerating science

Virtual tour of the LHC

Related resources, hl-lhc drone footage point 1, lhc tunnel stock footage, lhc images gallery.

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A new kind of experiment at the LHC could unravel quantum reality

The Large Hadron Collider is testing entanglement in a whole new energy range, probing the meaning of quantum theory – and the possibility that an even stranger reality lies beneath

By Michael Brooks

24 April 2024

Kyle Ellingson

For  Alan Barr , it started during the covid-19 lockdowns. “I had a bit more time. I could sit and think,” he says.

He had enjoyed being part of the success at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland — the particle collider that discovered the Higgs boson . But now, he wondered, were they missing a trick? “I had spent long hours screwing bits of it together. And I thought, ‘Well, we’ve built this beautiful piece of apparatus, but maybe we could be doing more with it,’ ” he says.

The LHC is typically seen as a machine for finding new particles. But now Barr and a slew of other physicists are asking if it can also be used to probe the underlying meaning of quantum theory and why it paints reality as being so deeply weird.

That’s exactly what Barr and his colleagues are now investigating in earnest. Last year, they published the results of an experiment in which they showed that pairs of fundamental particles called top quarks could be put into the quantum state known as entanglement .

This was just the first of many entanglement experiments at particle colliders that could open up a whole new way of studying the nature of the universe. We can now ask why reality in quantum mechanics is so hard to pin down and what this has to do with experimenters — or even particles — having free will. Doing so could reveal whether space-time is fundamental or perhaps unveil a deeper reality that is even stranger than quantum mechanics. “We can do really different things with this collider,” says Barr.

Rethinking reality: Is the entire universe a single quantum object?

In the face of new evidence, physicists are starting to view the cosmos not as made up of disparate layers, but as a quantum whole linked by entanglement

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