Book and media fair Frankfurt Book Fair has announced that researchers from European atomic research organisation CERN will participate in this year's event from October 10-14. The researchers, using the largest particle accelerator in the world, the LHC - Large Hadron Collider, are seeking to go after the secret of the origin of the universe. The "World Machine" lies 100 metres under the surface in a 27 km long tunnel; four giant detectors allow scientists from over 100 countries to get a view of the first picoseconds of the universe.
CERN researchers will be at their fair stand to take questions directly as visitors get a live connection look into the CERN control room. The stand will occupy 165 square metres in Hall 4.2, the Hall for Expert Information, Science, Technology, and Education. One of the displays is the first server of the World Wide Web, which was developed in 1989 in Geneva. Also for the first time a model will be shown of the cases of anti-matter, which were used in Ron Howard's film Angels and Demons.
In order to make the adventure of particle physics understandable close up, an interactive "LHC Time Tunnel" is being built especially for the Frankfurt Book Fair. It takes visitors into the microworld of elementary particles and uses immersion projections to view the effect of the Higgs field; it also allows simulation of the collision of two protons with LHC energy.
Every 2-3 hours physicists from CERN will stand on the presentation platform to give 20 minute talks with a general overview of the goals and the state of research at CERN. Questions can be submitted to the researchers by texting, Twitter, or by e-mail.
