CERN’s director-general, Robert Aymar praised the immense progress made towards the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project when he addressed the 135th session of the CERN Council on 16 December 2005. “In one year, we have made great progress,” he said. “The challenge is not over, of course, but we have great confidence of maintaining the schedule for start-up in 2007.”
The LHC is the leading project for the world’s particle-physics community. Experiments performed there will investigate perplexing questions including why fundamental particles have the masses they have, and focus on understanding the missing mass and dark energy of the universe; visible matter seems to make up just 5% of what must exist. Physicists will also explore the reason for nature’s inclination for matter over antimatter, and probe matter as it existed immediately after the Big Bang.
Aymar’s congratulations come after a challenging year with delays imposed by repairing defects in the LHC’s cryogenic-fluid distribution system. These delays are now largely recovered. The cryogenic system is now well advanced and installation of the LHC’s magnets is progressing rapidly. Almost 1000 of the 1232 dipole magnets have been delivered to CERN and more than 200 magnets are already installed in the LHC’s underground tunnel. An average of 20 magnets a week are currently being installed, but this needs to increase to 25 a week in 2006 to reach the 2007 start-up deadline. A review of this schedule is planned for Spring 2006.
Aymar also informed delegates that CERN’s new visitor and networking centre, the Globe of Science and Innovation, opened its doors to the public in September 2005. The Globe is scheduled to host a permanent exhibition about scientific works at CERN, coinciding with the LHC start-up in 2007.
