CERN brings particle physics to Frankfurt Book Fair

As well as a range of books looking at the science of CERN and the LHC, the Laboratory will unveil a new interactive LHC time tunnel display and announce a collaboration with games developer Rovio to develop new educational resources for children linked to their award-winning Angry Birds game.

“We’re thrilled to bring particle physics to the world’s largest book fair,” said Rolf Landua, head of CERN’s Education and Outreach group.

“This is the official launch of our new interactive tunnel, which we look forward to integrating into future exhibitions. But as a special treat for this book fair, you may see some birds flying through it!”

The LHC time tunnel, built especially for the book fair, takes people into the world of sub-atomic particles by using state-of-the-art motion sensors and projectors to visualise the effect of the Higgs field.

Visitors can visualise protons moving inside the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and can kick virtual particles as hard as they can to see how they collide.

The CERN stand is based around a partial reconstruction of the CERN Control Centre, complete with live LHC status updates on the screens.

Popular science books about CERN are on display, as well as the first computer used by Tim Berners-Lee to develop the original World Wide Web software, and the antimatter trap used in Hollywood blockbuster “Angels & Demons”.

Events on the CERN stand:

On Friday 12 October at 13:00 Angry Birds will fly through the CERN stand as CERN Director General Rolf Heuer and Rovio’s Chief Marketing Officer, Peter Vesterbacka, announce the start of the collaboration to develop educational resources.

On Saturday 13 October from 14:30-16:00, Professor Heuer will be signing the book “LHC: the Large Hadron Collider”, published by Austrian publisher Edition Lammerhuber in cooperation with CERN and UNESCO Publishing.

This book features the photography of Peter Ginter and text from Austrian writer and playwright Franzobel with an introduction from Professor Heuer.

Each day at 10:00, 12:00, 14:00 and 16:00 CERN physicists will present “Insights into the world's largest particle accelerator”, giving audiences the latest updates about research into the smallest of nature’s buildi ng blocks.

These events will include live connections with the control rooms of CERN’s LHC and the experiments ATLAS and CMS. Questions from the public will be answered in German and English.

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics.

The Frankfurt Book Fair, now in its 64th year, is the world’s largest book fair.

The Angry Birds computer games have been downloaded more than a billion times.