For its 50th birthday, CERN, the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, is receiving a 27-meter globe from Switzerland. The lab’s proposal for the globe—created as the Palais de l’Equilibre for the country’s national exhibition last year in Neuchâtel—won a competition. At CERN it will be rechristened as the Globe of Innovation and will house a visitors’ center and quarters for networking with industry and promoting technology transfer. As part of the expanded visitor facilities, a new neighboring building will offer views of the Large Hadron Collider control center and of data from the accelerator.
“I am convinced that the Globe of Innovation will occupy an important place in passing the message of science,” Swiss President Pascal Couchepin said when he announced the gift. An opening ceremony is planned for October 2004.
