On 1 January, Thomson takes over as the director general of Cern, the multi-Nobel prizewinning nuclear physics laboratory on the outskirts of Geneva. It is here, deep beneath the ground, that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the largest scientific instrument ever built, recreates conditions that existed microseconds after the big bang. But one of the first things Thomson will do is turn the machine off for engineering work. View image in fullscreen The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) nuclear particle accelerator at Cern, pictured in 2018. The frontrunner is a colossal machine called the Future Circular Collider or FCC.

Source: The Guardian December 31, 2025 22:30 UTC