CERN: The Beast is Awakening From It’s Hibernation For the Biggest Year Yet

It’s that time of year again, CERN is awakening the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) from it’s “slumber”. The LHC is set to begin on Easter Sunday, symbolically the exact same day that Christians all around the world celebrate when Jesus Christ rose from the grave.

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It is vital to understand that 2016 and so on will be “go time” for CERN. 2015 was simply a learning year for the scientists at CERN.

“This was a great result but, to put it into context, the goal for the whole of Run 2 is to deliver 100 fb-1 by the end of 2018, so we still have a long way to go”, says Frédérick Bordry, Director for accelerators and technology.

“It would be easy to think that LHC running is becoming routine, and in many ways it is. Nevertheless, the year-end technical stop is a vital part of the running cycle and much has been accomplished over this short winter break,” he concludes.

According to the speech given last year (see second video in player above) they plan to crank it up to higher energies than previously thought. It is vital that we have an understanding of what this means. 2015 was just a learning curve for everyone.

The energy was incredible, 2015 will be marked as one of the years that people all across the globe awoke to what was going on at the CERN and the LHC. However, this year it gets more intense.

The previous year also marked big changes for CERN’s leadership. Rolf-Dieter Heuer, stepped down; and the philosopher, Fabiola Gianotti, stepped up. Fabiola marks massive change at the LHC because she is known as the woman with the key to the secrets of the universe.

Fabiola Gainotti is an Italian particle physicist and the Director-General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Her mandate began on 1 January 2016 and runs for a period of five years. She is the first woman to hold the position of CERN Director-General.”

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Gianotti initially decided to study philosophy at university because it asked big questions, but in the end changed to physics because it was more likely to produce answers. This combination of artistic and scientific influences has left her with three passions in life: music, cooking and physics. “All three follow very precise rules,” she says. “Musical harmony is based on physical principles while in cooking, ingredients must be weighed out with precision. At the same time, you have to be able to invent because if one follows the same recipe all the time, you never create anything new.”

This is a big year; the discovery of gravitational waves, and the potential for a particle heavier than the Higgs proves that this year will be far more awakening than 2015.