I learnt about CERN for the first time when I read Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons 8 years ago. For those of you who don’t know what CERN is, it’s the “Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire” or European Council for Nuclear Research. It was founded in 1954 in Switzerland with the mandate of establishing a world-class fundamental physics research organization in Europe.

CERN’s research work mainly focuses on particle physics – the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces acting between them. Here you will find the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments such as the Large Hadron Collider that are used to study the fundamental constituents of matter.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, ‘father of the World Wide Web’, was attached to CERN when he created the internet back in, 1989. Today most of us cannot imagine life without the internet! In 1993 the World Wide Web software was put in the public domain by CERN.

I’m a biological science student and I don’t have a very good understanding about particle physics. However, I was excited to hear that one of CERN’s physicists will be delivering a lecture at the University of Colombo! Dr Rudiger Voss, Head of International Relations, CERN, will be in Sri Lanka on a short visit from the 1st-4th November 2014. Dr Voss’s visit is organized by the Coordinating Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI).

Dr Voss will be delivering a lecture, followed by a discussion on “Research Activities at CERN – recent advances and future prospects” at the University of Colombo on the 4^th of November. This event will be organized by the Institute of Physics, Sri Lanka along with the Department of Physics, University of Colombo.

References : http://home.web.cern.ch/

http://www.costi.gov.lk/index.php/en/