Discourse: CERN - the past, present and future

Director-General of CERN, Mark Thomson, explores what's next for the world-leading research facility, and how decades of research have got us to this point.

For decades, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN as it’s more commonly known, has been the home of world-leading particle physics. From the discovery of W and Z bosons in 1983, via the creation of antihydrogens in 1995, to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) finding the Higgs Boson in 2012, CERN has been a global hub for innovation and international collaboration. But what is next?

In this Discourse, particle physicist and CERN's Director-General, Mark Thomson, will reflect on the present understanding of particle physics and the future direction at one of the world's most successful research facilities. Mark will describe what CERN does and how CERN recreates the conditions that existed shortly after the Big Bang. He will discuss the current understanding of particle physics, the many open questions, and the next steps at CERN.