CERN 50 th Anniversary A Photographic Timeline Miguel Angel Marquina (Editor) CIEMAT/CERN.

CERN 50th AnniversaryA Photographic Timeline

Miguel Angel Marquina (Editor)

CIEMAT/CERN

Introduction

This sampling has been built recreating the document “Highlights of CERN History”, written on the occasion of CERN’s 40th and 50th anniversaries.

Pictures and photographic material have been taken from CERN’s CDS system, which contains more than 5000 entries; all are copyrighted CERN.

Timeline Index

1950-1959 1960-1969 1970-1979 1980-1989 1990-1999 2000-2004

1949

During the European Cultural Conference at Lausanne, the French physicist and Nobel prize-winner Louis de Broglie proposes the creation of a European science laboratory.

1950-1959

1950

At the 5th General Conference of UNESCO held in Florence, the American physicist and Nobel prize-winner Isidore Rabi puts forward a resolution, which is unanimously adopted, authorising the Director General of UNESCO, "to assist and encourage the formation and organization of regional centres and laboratories in order to increase and make more fruitful the international collaboration of scientists ...".

1950

Participants of the "Colloque de Physique Theorique de Paris“

© CERN Photo

1951

Wolfgang Pauli in Heidelberg

© CERN Photo

1952

After two UNESCO Conferences are held on the subject, 11 European governments sign an agreement setting up a provisional "Conseil européen pour la Recherche nucléaire" (CERN). At a meeting of the CERN council in Amsterdam, a site near Geneva is selected for the planned laboratory.

1952

Pierre Auger, Eduardo Amaldi and Lew Kowarski

© CERN Photo

1954

The European Organization for Nuclear Research is formally created on 29th September, when sufficient ratifications of the Convention establishing CERN are obtained from Member States, thus dissolving the "provisional" CERN. The acronym CERN, however, is retained.

1954

First excavation work on Meyrin site

© CERN Photo

1954

PS magnet model Foundations of the SC building

© CERN Photo © CERN Photo

1955

Twelve founding Member States ratify the Convention: Federal Republic of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.

1955

First coil for the SC Wilson chamber of CERN


1955

PS ring : foundations for "pendulum" supports

PS magnet unit : a small scale model


1955

"First stone" ceremony :

authorities in the audience First meeting of the CERN

Council


1956

Wolfgang Pauli at the 6th meeting of the Nobel Prize laureates

PS injector : high voltage ion source under tests

© CERN Photo© CERN Photo

1956

PS ring building under construction

The double Wilson chamber


1957

The 600 MeV Synchro-Cyclotron comes into operation. One of the first experimental achievements is the long-awaited observation of the decay of a pion directly into an electron and a neutrino.

1957

SC experiments : one of the first pion beams

Projector to analyze track chamber film


1958

The Mercury computer Hydrogen bubble chamber (10 cm. diameter)


1958

The first two magnet units installed in the PS ring

Pauli's funeral wreaths at Fraumunster church in Zurich


1959

Austria joins CERN First operation of the 28 GeV Proton

Synchrotron (PS), which is for a time the highest energy accelerator in the world. In the same year, the first experiments using neutrino beams are carried out; this field of research eventually becomes a speciality of the physics programme at CERN.

1959

SC experiments : liquid deuterium target in the extracted proton beam

Professor Cornelis Jan Bakker, Director-General of CERN from Sep 1955 to Apr 1960


1959

Congratulation messages from the whole world received by CERN upon the successful operation of the PS

© CERN Photo

1960-1969

1960

PS inauguration ceremony : Niels Bohr signing

PS inauguration ceremony : M. Willems with W. Heisenberg


1960

Prof. Leon Van Hove Pier Giorgio Innocenti with the model of the HLBC - Heavy Liquid Bubble Chamber


1960

Apparatus for the first "g-2" experiment at the SC

Prof. Vicky Weisskopf


1960

Interaction of a 24 GeV/c proton in the 32 cm CERN hydrogen bubble chamber.

© CERN Photo

1961

Yugoslavia leaves the Organization for financial reasons.

Spain joins CERN

1963

First bubble chamber pictures of neutrino interactions are taken. Neutrino physics benefits greatly from fast ejection of protons from the Synchrotron, which is achieved for the first time ever during May this year.

1964

End of the year celebrations : G. Charpak, J. Prentki and R. Armenteros (left to right)

© CERN Photo

1965

Agreement with French authorities is signed in September on extending the CERN site over the French border. In December, the Council approves the construction of the Intersecting Storage Rings (ISR) on this extension of the site.

1967

CERN commissions one of the world's finest facilities for the study of very short-lived nuclei - the Isotope Separator On-line (ISOLDE).

An agreement between CERN, France and Germany covers the construction of a 3.7 metre hydrogen bubble chamber equipped with the largest superconducting magnet in the world. During its working life from 1973 to 1984, the "Big European Bubble Chamber" (BEBC) takes over 6 million photographs.

1968

Invention by Georges Charpak of multiwire proportional chambers and drift chambers - representing some of the most important advances in the domain of electronic particle detectors. He will be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992 for this invention.

1968

Assembling the Gargamelle magnet

The great advance in the technology of particle detectors during the year was the discovery of the properties of multiwire proportional chambers and drift chambers


1968

The official inauguration ceremony of the European Physical Society

© CERN Photo

1969

Spain leaves the Organization

1970-1979

1970

First injection tests into ISR Ring I

Big European Bubble Chamber BEBC


1970

A view inside the Gargamelle bubble chamber

© CERN Photo

1971

Approval of the proposal to build a second laboratory adjoining the existing site in France and Switzerland for the construction of a new Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) which is initially planned to reach an energy of 300 GeV. Although at first administratively separate, the two CERN laboratories are united in January 1976.

1971

Injection line from Linac to Booster

Approval for the construction of a 300 GeV proton synchrotron


1971

ERASME

© CERN Photo

1972

A four ring 800 MeV Booster is completed to increase the injection energy of the PS. With the booster and the new Linac, which starts operation in 1978, the PS machine exceeds its design intensity by more than a thousand times.

1973

First important discoveries from the experiments at the ISR emerge: protons grow in size as their energy is increased; and colliding protons can produce diffraction patterns rather like those of light bending around a disc, thus showing the wave nature of the proton.

It is with the French-built Gargamelle bubble chamber in a neutrino beam at the Proton Synchrotron (PS) that one of CERN's greatest physics discoveries is made: it is found that neutrinos can interact with another particle without changing into a muon. This behaviour is known as the "neutral current interaction" and is the discovery which opens the door to what is known as "new physics". It has great implications for the theoretical ideas about the fundamental forces of physics. In particular, it gives strong support to the theory which attempts to unite our understanding of the weak force - governing such phenomena as radioactivity - with the familiar electromagnetic force.

1974

Spark chamber experiment The Omega spectrometer


1974

Discovery of charmed particles : Sam Ting

The magnetic tape vault


1974

U7 particle identifier First magnet in the SPS


1975

Cockcroft-Walton Column

© CERN Photo

1976

Start of operation of the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). As with the ISR, machine construction is completed ahead of schedule and within the authorised budget. The accelerator performance improves rapidly so that the design intensity is exceeded and at the end of 1978, the peak energy is taken to 500 GeV.

1976

Cockcroft-Walton generator for Linac 2

The SPS (Super Proton Synch.) tunnel with, in the foreground in red, a dipole magnet. About 800 six-metre long dipole magnets guide the beam.


1977

SPS : inauguration ceremony

© CERN Photo

1978

Experiments at CERN show how beam quality and intensity can be improved using the "stochastic cooling technique", enabling intense beams of antiprotons to be accelerated and stored.

1978

Bubble chamber : a BEBC liquid hydrogen event

© CERN Photo

1980-1989

1981

Conversion of the SPS into a proton-antiproton collider and the building of two experimental areas (UA-1 and UA-2) where data from the collisions can be taken. From then on, the operation of the SPS is divided between this collider mode and fixed-target physics.

The first proton-antiproton collisions at an energy of 2 x 270 GeV are seen in July 1981, a few months after the start-up of the new Antiproton Accumulator ring (AA), where stochastic cooling is applied to produce the antiproton beam.

The Member States authorise construction of the Large Electron-Positron collider (LEP) for an initial operating energy of 50 GeV per beam.

1981

UA1 experiment detector

© CERN Photo

1982

Spray of particles

© CERN Photo

1983

Discovery of the W-bosons (January) and the Z-boson (May) - the carriers of the weak nuclear force - thus confirming the theory of electro-weak interactions and unifying the weak and electromagnetic forces.

In September, the ground-breaking ceremony for LEP takes place in the presence of the French and Swiss Presidents, Mr. François Mitterrand and Mr. Pierre Aubert. LEP is the largest scientific instrument ever constructed, with a circumference of 27 kilometers.

Spain rejoins CERN

1983

LEP ground-breaking ceremony in 1983

Image reconstituée par ordinateur d'une collision proton-pbar. Parmi les produits de cette collision, on peut reconnaître les traces de la désintégration d'un "boson intermédiaire Z0" en un électron et un positon (anti-électron).


1983

Press conference : discovery of the intermediate W boson

© CERN Photo

1984

Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer receive the Nobel Prize for Physics for their experimental work on proton-antiproton collisions which culminated in the discovery of the W boson and Z boson at CERN in 1983.

1984

A cut-away diagram of the OPAL detector

Carlo Rubbia (left) and Simon van der Meer in 1984


1985

LEP sextupole magnet ALEPH experimental area : schema


1986

CHARM II (neutrino detector) LINAC Injector for LEP (LIL)


1987

Electron Positron Accumulator (EPA)

ALEPH magnet return yoke and hadron calorimeter


1987

The superconducting coil of the DELPHI experiment on the final leg of its journey from the UK Rutherford Appleton Laboratory to CERN, descending from the Jura mountains in October 1987

UA1 detector : decay of a W


1987

Detector for the UA2 experiment LEP magnet : first installation


1987

UA1 : first Z event recorded

© CERN Photo

1988

OPAL detector end cap UA2 event


1988

Léon Lederman, Mel Schwartz and Jack Steinberger wre awarded the 1988 Nobel Physics Prize.

View of part of the Computer Centre in 1988 with, in the background against the rear wall, a CRAY X-MP/48 supercomputer


1989

In August, LEP starts up. In October, only two months after the first collisions in LEP, CERN makes a very important physics discovery. After an extremely accurate measurement of the width of the Z0 particle, CERN physicists announce that the fundamental building blocks of matter consist of only three families of particles. On the 13th of November, LEP is officially inaugurated by Heads of State and Science Ministers from CERN Member States and other countries involved in the CERN experimental programme.

Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web

1989

An exploded view of the OPAL detector

L3 experiment: inside calorimeter BGO


1989

DELPHI: installing of the time projection chamber

ALEPH hadronic calorimeter

© CERN Photo

© CERN Photo

1989

L3 experiment LEP : inauguration ceremony


1990-1999

1990-1999

The years from 1989 are marked by the success of LEP experiments. The outstanding result is the precision measurement of the Z resonance parameters: over the period from 1989 to 1993 the four LEP detectors - ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL - reconstructed more than 10 million Z decays.

The World-Wide-Web was also cooked and then exposed thanks to NCSA-Mosaic during the early 90’s

1990

Station de test pour aimant LHC Cérémonie arrivée du dernier cristal BGO + end cap du calorimètre hadronique


1990

OBELIX experiment and detector at LEAR

L3 detector : decay of a Z0


1990

OPAL detector : decay Z0 ALEPH : decay of a Z0


1990

DELPHI : decay of a Z0 The first web server: this machine was used by Tim Berners-Lee in 1990 to develop and run the first WWW server, multi-media browser and web editor.


1991

In December, CERN's Council delegates agree unanimously that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the right machine for further significant advance in the field of high energy physics research and for the future of CERN.

Finland and Poland join CERN

1992

George Charpak, a CERN physicist, is awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for the invention of the multiwire proportional chamber, which enables physicists to make major progress in the tracking of particles and which is now used for many medical applications.

Hungary joins CERN

1992

ISOLDE hall Three Nobel Prize winners at CERN : Rubbia, Ting and Charpak


1992

Beam line of the ISOLDE facility inaugurated in 1992

LHC prototype of the two beam pipes


1993

Czech and Slovak Republics join CERN

1993

NOMAD et CHORUS: neutrino experiments

OPAL detector, central barrel


1993

General view of muon spectrometer in the L3 detector with the magnet doors opened

ALEPH detector


1993

The IBM Cartridge mounting robot in the Computer Centre (capacity: 18,000 cartridges)

NA49 detector - general view

© CERN Photo

© CERN Photo

1993

Charles PEYROU (former director of CERN's bubble chambers)

Charpak's detector : autoradiography of a rat brain


1994

On December 16th the CERN Council gave the go-ahead for the construction of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, to be financed by the Member States with substantial contributions by non-Member States.

1995

NA48 experiment Superconducting radio frequency cavity installed in the LEP tunnel for LEP2, the upgrade of the accelerator.


1999

Bulgaria joins CERN

1999 – 20 member states

2000-2004

2000

LEP ceases to operate at the end of the year to make way for the construction of the LHC, having achieved its aim of placing the “Standard Model: on firm experimental ground.

2000

LEP Fest 2000 - Science Symposium : J. Steinberger "LEP experiments", ALEPH

LEP Fest 2000 - Science Symposium : U. Amaldi "LEP experiments", DELPHI

© CERN Photo

© CERN Photo

2000

LEP Fest 2000 - Science Symposium : U. Becker "LEP experiments", L3

LEP Fest 2000 - Science Symposium : A. Michelini "LEP experiments", OPAL

© CERN Photo

© CERN Photo

2003

The dipole magnets for the first octant of the LHC are completed.

2003

Transport from Spain to CERN of a vacuum vessel for the ATLAS barrel toroid magnet-system.

World Summit on the Information Society

© CERN Photo

© CERN Photo

2004

The new computer room build in the building 513

Globe de l'Innovation - Assemblage de la charpentage et et pose des premiers bardages

© CERN Photo

© CERN Photo

CERN 50 th Anniversary A Photographic Timeline Miguel Angel Marquina (Editor) CIEMAT/CERN.

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Transcript of CERN 50 th Anniversary A Photographic Timeline Miguel Angel Marquina (Editor) CIEMAT/CERN.