THE EUROPEAN Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, was made possible by the lucky convergence of many different visions. After the Second World War, a small number of scientists in Europe understood the need for a quantitative change in the way they did research -- Europe needed to invest resources in joint experiments that no single country could afford.
In a letter to the European Cultural Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, in December 1949, Louis de Broglie advocated "the creation of a laboratory or institution where it would be possible to do scientific work, but somehow beyond the framework of the different participating states...". Endowed with more resources than national facilities, such a laboratory could consequently "undertake tasks,which, by virtue of their size and cost, were beyond the scope of individual countries".
To read the full version of this article -- and the rest of the September issue of Physics World -- please subscribe to our print edition.