The enormous constructions at Cern evoke great cathedrals and Egyptian pyramids, says Jonathan Glancey. Paradoxically, this extreme expression of modern science may be the most spritual structure of our time
GATEWAY to the GODS: The Mystery Hole Con-CERN
Their most profound works, and especially Chartres, are aligned with the constellations, as if they had been built as observatories, but with prayer rather than radio waves beaming into infinite, and numinous, space.
Back on the surface, our most ambitious contemporary buildings, whether in Europe or the rest of the world, tend to be vast office and hotel towers. Cities and states vie with one another to reach ever higher into the sky. None of these braggadocio designs, however, have any purpose beyond getting and spending. None has anything like the spiritual charge of a Sumerian Ziggurat, an Egyptian pyramid or a medieval cathedral, nor the sheer sense of wonder engendered by pure engineering marvels, whether the late 19th century Eiffel Tower or the early 21st century Viaduc de Millau over the River Tarn in the Massif Central.
No matter how odd it might seem at first, the most profoundly spiritual structure of our time, housed for the most part in functional sheds and unadorned underground passageways, is the vast Cern laboratory, tucked away out of sight, although very much in mind.
Here is a temple of our own age, a place and space where we will have a chance of understanding a little more of the Great Architect and the universe, or universes, he set blazing into perpetual motion.
guardian.co.uk, UK -
More than two decades in the making, the Large Hadron Collider is in its final months before the grand switch-on. Brian Cox tours the vast underground ...
Worth every penny guardian.co.uk, UK - Building the LHC has cost the world's taxpayers more than £5bn so far. Lawrence Krauss explains why understanding particle collisions is, like great art, ... |
The building blocks guardian.co.uk, UK - Martin Rees introduces the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, the most powerful experiment ever to probe the greatest of questions in physics: what is the ... |
Introducing the Big Bang machine guardian.co.uk, UK - Humans have always strived to understand where the universe came from. Aristotle believed it could not have had a beginning and would not end. ... |
The end of the world as we know it? guardian.co.uk, UK - Scaremongers have warned that the collisions at Cern could unleash incalculable danger and perhaps even destroy the Earth. Michio Kaku puts some fears to ... |
LHC: Cern in numbers guardian.co.uk, UK - Visitors stand in front of the ATLAS detector during the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) Open Day at the European Particle Physics laboratory (CERN) in Geneva, ... |
Falling off the edge of the world guardian.co.uk, UK - Astonishing as it may seem, no major discovery has been made in fundamental physics for a quarter of a century. In that time all the excitement has been ... |
Critics' fears of atom-smasher dismissed Seattle Times, United States - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched ... |
Big Chill turned on in hunt for our origins Times Online, UK - It will be the coldest place on Earth, more deeply frozen even than outer space. About 330ft underground near Lake Geneva in Switzerland this weekend, ... |
 | Scientists: Nothing to fear from atom-smasher The Associated Press - MEYRIN, Switzerland (AP) — The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in ... |
 | The World's Largest 'Time Machine' Finally Revealed – Federal ... Gather.com, MA - by David A. I'm sure most of us remember the very popular episode of The Time Machine. It's origins started with a novel by HG Wells, first published in ... |
50% Chance That CERN's Large Hadron Collider May Destroy The Earth ... The Spoof (satire), UK - Scientists working in Switzerland have admitted that there is a 50/50 chance that the Earth will implode once The Large Hadron Collider, housed next to Lake ... |
US Completes Contribution to World's Most Powerful Particle ... Media Newswire (press release), NY - WASHINGTON, DC - The US contribution to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been completed on budget and ahead of schedule, the US Department of Energy ... |
 | Photo, Video: Launch Of Atom Smasher Sparks Apocalyptic Fears Post Chronicle - by Toshiba Reynolds The launch of a controversial new scientific advance, the atom smasher, has sparked fears of an apocalyptic world-ending explosion or ... |
Scientists Allay Fears of Hadron-Triggered Planetary Meltdown TechNewsWorld, CA - By JR Raphael No, a black hole won't swallow the Earth in August when a group of European scientists turn on the Large Hadron Collider, an underground ... |
Where Is the Large Hadron Collider That Might Destroy Earth? Jaunted - Nah, not really. The scientists at the massive European physics lab CERN say when they switch on the Large Hadron Collider this August nothing more than ... |
The LHC, the end of the world July 2008 and Moridura American Chronicle, CA - The quotation was from the words of Vishnu in the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Hindu scripture, but in 1945 it came from the mouth of J. Robert Oppenheimer, ... |
World’s largest particle collider poses no danger to Earth, say ... Fresh News, India - By ANI on Sunday, June 29, 2008 Microscopic black holes that might possibly be produced by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is the world’s largest ... |
Questions, Quirky Quarks Quase Earth-Quashing Quakes of Fears Over ... OpEdNews, PA - Some are so concerned they have filed a law suit to prevent the LHC from being turned on. The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) or the world’s largest ... |
Kansas City Star, MO -
By DOUGLAS BIRCH AP The European Organization for Nuclear Research’s Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator is expected to have test runs in August. ...
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