Google lets you take a virtual tour of the Large Hadron Collider

Google Street View gives you a look into Europe's famous research facility

Published September 26, 2013 10:20PM (EDT)

You may think Google's engineers are smart, but they're rather outclassed by the small town's worth of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians who populate CERN, Europe's amazing research facility that's home to the Large Hadron Collider. Now CERN has graciously opened its doors to Google's Street View. This means that you, too can take a walk around the rooms and structures where scientists are trying to unravel the secrets of everything.

CERN is enormous, so it took the Street View team about two weeks to image the whole thing back in 2011. The image archives are extensive as a result, letting you walk around the curving tunnels that contain the particle accelerator at the heart of the LHC and even to peep at the various experiments inserted in its beam, including the ones used to find the Higgs boson.

It's the sort of facility that you will find fascinating––your writer has long dreamed of visiting, having been lucky enough to spend hundreds of hours strolling around a mere 100–meter synchrotron, a small toy compared to the LHC. Once you've enjoyed peeping at CERN, why don't you do a little reading about what goes on there?


By KIT EATON

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Cern Europe Fast Company Google Google Street View Physics Science