- CERN is world’s largest nuclear and particle physics laboratory.
- It is situated in North West suburbs of Geneva on France-Swiss Border.
- It was established in .
- Members: It has 22 member states, four associate member states (including India and Pakistan) and three International Organisations have observer status.
- Functions:
- The laboratory helps scientists and engineers probing fundamental structure of Universe using the most sophisticated scientific instruments and advanced computing systems
- Provide the necessary infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research including particle accelerators.
- Achievements:
- CERN operates the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.
- It is associated with the discovery of the Higgs Boson which is popularly known as the God particle.
- Indian scientists has been active in construction of the LHC in the areas of design, development and supply of hardware accelerator components, software development and deployment in the machine.
- They also had played significant role in the CMS (Compact Muon Experiment), one of the two large experiments that led to discovery of God particle.
- Why in news? India has become an associate member.