Just outside Geneva, on the border between Switzerland and France, lies the world’s largest — and arguably most successful — science experiment. Its name is the Large Hadron Collider, and it is run by CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research.
For the last 80 years, CERN has been home to thousands of physicists, engineers, and computer scientists, working to unlock the mysteries of the cosmos. People come from far and wide to partake in its research, including from right here in Edinburgh. So, could your next career be at CERN?
For STEM students wanting to get a taste of what it’s like to work at CERN, the organisation offers a Student Summer Programme for undergraduate students who are in third year or above. The programme is extremely competitive, but for those students lucky enough to get in, CERN offers the chance to work on an in-depth research project on the Large Hadron Collider, as well as lectures and seminars from world-class experts.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator. It consists of a 27 km circular tunnel underground — so large it lies in two different countries. The operations centre is in Geneva, Switzerland, while most of the tunnel sits beneath the French countryside. Inside the tunnel, powerful electrical and magnetic fields accelerate subatomic particles to extremely high speeds. These particles are then made to collide with each other, and the resulting collisions are analysed by scientists to discover more about the nature of the universe.
Research at CERN has led to many discoveries in the field of particle physics. Perhaps the most notable was the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. The particle is key to understanding how matter works, and its discovery was the culmination of 60 years of dedication and research by physicists around the globe. This breakthrough was so monumental it was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year.
The namesake of the Higgs boson, Peter Higgs, was a student at the University of Edinburgh. He later returned as a professor, continuing to work here for the rest of his life. The Department of Particle Physics at the University continues his legacy, collaborating closely with CERN. Every year, PhD students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors make the journey from Edinburgh to Geneva.
Along with these visiting researchers, there are thousands of full-time employees at CERN, with nearly 10 per cent of them coming from the UK. However, competition for jobs is fierce. There are tens of thousands of people who dream of working at this prestigious site and contributing to the incredible discoveries made there.
Beyond particle physics, CERN has been at the forefront of technological innovation for decades. In the early 1990s, while working as a computer scientist at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. Originally designed as a way for the thousands of scientists working at CERN to communicate ideas and share research, it has since become the most influential and ubiquitous invention of modern times. Without CERN, you wouldn’t be able to read this article.
So, whether you’re an aspiring physicist, an engineer looking to work on something big, or a programmer wanting to do something new and exciting, consider a career at CERN. And who knows — you could be part of the next discovery of the century.
Photo by Devon Rogers on Unsplash
