 Welcome to this discovery session, a session of immersive storytelling, and you're all in for a tremendous treat when it comes to storytelling, with a fantastic storyteller and a fantastic story to share with you. I am Magdalena Skipper, Editor-in-Chief of Nature, which is a multidisciplinary scientific journal, and it's my real pleasure to be introducing and then conducting a conversation and taking in your question with Fabiola Genotti. So just a word about the structure of the session. Fabiola will guide us, introduce us through the theme of our meeting here today for about 15 minutes, so half of the time that we have here together. And then we will open up for questions from you. The story is indeed fascinating. We will hear about the insights into the nature of the universe, and of course this in itself is fundamentally fascinating. What's also fascinating is how to learn how those insights are generated and by extension from that process, how that process in itself informs other disciplines, our other sectors and areas of discovery. So we will hear about the influence that the process of learning about the nature of the universe, the influence that it has on, for example, the medical field, environmental monitoring, food safety, there are many others that Fabiola will talk about. And then of course there was a fundamental aspect to the collaborative nature of the discovery that we will hear about. So before I hand over to Fabiola, let me introduce Fabiola herself. So she is director general of CERN and has been so since the beginning of 2016. She's the first woman in this role and the only person who's been reelected to lead CERN for a second mandate of five years. By training, she's a sub-nuclear physicist, that's a PhD degree she holds from University of Milano. And in her work as a researcher, she, one of the things she led was this Atlas experiment which uses large Hadron collider. And while you may not be familiar with the Atlas experiment itself, you are almost certainly familiar with probably its most famous discovery and that's the Hades boson, the so-called God particle, you probably remember that term, had that's how it was reported back in the day. And believe it or not, that was just over 10 years ago. And in fact last summer, there was a wonderful celebration in 10 years. So of course, the announcement was made and indeed led by Fabiola back in 2012. Last year in the summer, there was a 10th anniversary celebration. In fact, in nature, we celebrated it by publishing follow-up research and also celebrating the history itself. Fabiola holds a number of distinctions, awards and honorary degrees. I will just mention two points because I think they're really worthy of mentioning. She's been included among top 100 most inspirational women by the Guardian newspaper and top 100 most influential women by Forbes also. So here we have an inspirational woman and an accomplished physicist to tell us about the mysteries of the universe, the insights into it and how those influence other fields as well, Fabiola. Thank you very much Magdalena, thanks. Thanks a lot. Thanks Magdalena for this very nice introduction and also thank you for the opportunity to describe the science we do at CERN. So what is CERN? CERN is the largest laboratory in the world for particle physics and particle physics is the most fundamental of all sciences because it studies the smallest constituents of matter and of the universe, constituents that cannot be cut into smaller pieces and therefore they are called elementary particles. CERN is based in Switzerland, in Geneva, close to the border with France and here you can see an aerial view of the region with the lake here and Switzerland on the bottom part of the screen and France on the top part and the ring, the circle you see indicates the location of the Large Hadron Collider. It's the most powerful accelerator humanity has ever built. It's a 27 kilometer ring 100 meter underground where we accelerate two beams of protons in the two opposite directions of the of the ring and then we bring them into collisions at four points. But what is an elementary particle and what is its size? So let's start from something that we know, a human here. Okay this is a human here. So the size is 100 microns, so one tenth of a millimeter, a micron is one millionths of a meter and then if you go down deeper into the structure of metals, we find cells of course, and then going deeper and deeper we find virus structure, fibrils and proteins for instance, here we go keratin and then if we go down and deeper we found atoms. In the case of air we have nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen and carbon. Now atoms are not elementary particles, they are made of substructure, they are made of a central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Electrons are elementary particles whereas the nucleus is not. It's made of substructures and these substructures are called neutrons and protons. They have a size of one fermi, a fermi is 10 to the minus 15 meter. Neutrons and protons are not elementary particles, they are made of substructures and these substructures are called the quarks. The quarks are elementary particles as far as we know today, so electrons and quarks are the fundamental constituent of matter, they are elementary particles and all the matter we are made of, all us human being is made of electrons and quarks. When I say all human beings, I mean everyone, so even the VIP here in Davos, even the head of states, everyone is made of electrons and quarks. So science and external exploration with the large electron colliders allows us to study matters at the level of its fundamental constituent, the quarks. So on physical scales of 10 to the minus 18 meters or smaller, so a billion of a billion of a meter. So in some sense accelerators can be compared to big microscopes. The smaller the structure you want to study, the more the energy you need because you need a very high resolution power. So if to study human cells, you can just use a microscope in the lab, if you want really to study matter at the most fundamental level, you need to use big accelerators with a lot of energy and we will see how this is done. At the same time, this study of the very, very, very small allows us to study the very, very big, so the structure and evolution of the universe. Today we know with high precision that the universe has been at origin from a big explosion some 13.8 billion years ago. At the beginning it was very hot and very dense and it was essentially gas of elementary particles and it expanded and cooled down and then the elementary particles started to get together. First the quarks to form neutrons and protons, then neutrons and protons to form nuclei, nuclei with electrons to form atoms, atoms to form molecules and then up to the macro structure that we see here, stars, planets, galaxies and of course us, the human beings and our hair. So this is the reverse movie of what I showed before. So the large electron collider allows us to probe the universe at times corresponding to 10 to the minus 12 seconds after the big bang, one millionth of a millionth of a second. So what does this mean? It means that the energy that we produce in the collisions of the two proton beams corresponds to the temperature that the universe had at this time and the temperature was 100,000 billion times the temperature in this room. So we are able, so these numbers are quite impressive, we are able to reproduce in the lab in control condition, we are able to reproduce the phenomena that characterized the very primordial, the very early universe. So the elementary particles that were there, the interactions, the various phenomena that took place. To do that we need three big classes of instruments. We need particle accelerators, we need particle detectors and we need powerful computers. So let's start from the accelerators and here we are back again to, quick again, yes to the ring. So as I said at the beginning we inject two protons in the two proton beams in the two opposite directions and we accelerate them at the largest possible energies. The limit only comes from the technology, the technology superconductive magnets that are needed to provide a very strong field to keep the beams on the circular trajectory. And these two beams collide in four experiments, so these are four giant instruments, underground instruments, when I say giant I mean a cathedral, take half Notre Dame and put it underground. And the goal and the purpose of these experiments is to detect the product of the collisions. So we have these high energy beams colliding, the movie should go on, yes, colliding in these big underground instruments and they produce thousands of particles and the task of the detector is to measure each single, every single particle produced in the collision, identify those particles, measure their energy, reconstruct their trajectories and give us a picture, an image of the collision event. So if accelerators can be compared to giant microscope, particle detectors can be compared to digital cameras that take pictures of the collisions. But you know it's very special in high tech cameras because the two particle beams collide 40 million times a second. So these detectors must be fast enough to look and to take picture of this of the events and then discard those that are not useful or interesting and then save to storage only those that can be, that are, that deserve further study. So from this you can, for instance, deduce if you produce a X boson, a W, a Z particle and then study, you know, the constituent of metals with very high precision. All this will not be possible without the contribution of scientists from all over the world. So CERN attracts some 16,000 people, technicians, scientists, engineers, physicists from all over the world. More than 110 nationalities are represented. We also have scientists coming from under privileged countries, so in this case our mission is capacity building, and some of the scientists actually come from countries that are not the best friends of each other, actually countries that are in conflict and they work together at CERN, animated by the same passion for knowledge. Computing is also extremely impressive because we have a distributed population across the world, so we need distributed computing. So at the time of the conception of the LHC, CERN and its partner developed what is called the LHC computing grid. So a grid of more than 150 computing centers distributed across the world and connected by very fast links and networks, providing a storage capacity of two exabytes and something like one million processing cores. Now this instrument, detectors, accelerators and computers are extremely sophisticated. For instance, in the case of computing, the LHC computing grid has paved the way to the cloud. So really instrument developed and that are based on very cutting edge technologies that in some cases are really pioneering technologies. These technologies are transferred to society to the benefit of everyday life, and they are transferred free of charge because the funding conversion convention of CERN, which was signed by the member states back in 1954, states that everything we do, the results of our research, the technologies we develop are available to everybody free of charge. This is what we call today open science, but already there, 70 years ago, that was already present in the founding convention of CERN. So I will give you some example. Everybody knows that the World Wide Web was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee at the time he was working as CERN employee, but other examples are for instance accelerators that are used to treat cancer using proton, ion and electron beams, which for some tumors are more effective than the conventional radiotherapy and also in particular because they do not have side effects, they do not create problems to the healthy tissues. Superconducting materials have the possibility of wide application. The image was too fast, I cannot go back in a moment, but the previous image showed radiation dosimeter onboard the International Space Station. And here we can see here is a high resolution 3D color image of a medical image made with CERN electronics. So several decades of exploration at CERN and in other laboratories for particle physics across the world allowed us to discover several elementary particles that are shown here and understand their properties in detail and their interactions. The last one to be found is the X boson, which was discovered at CERN 10 years ago, as Magdalena correctly said, very special particles without which atoms or which we are all made will not exist as stable systems, so we will simply not be here. However, these particles and these interactions only explain the so-called visible universe, which is 5% of what is out there. The rest 95% is made of formal matter that we don't know, and we call them actually dark matter and dark energy. Dark indicates on one end our ignorance and on the other hand the fact that they do not interact with our instruments, so we don't see them. And I would like to conclude with a beautiful image of the sky. Whilst what really strikes us in this image is, of course, are the stars, the galaxies, the bright objects, actually the most fascinating, the most intriguing part is the dark. The dark is today mysterious. We don't understand the dark universe, and that's a focus of scientific exploration today and tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. That was terrific. And a couple of reflections, if I may, and then I start off with a question. I hope you have began to formulate questions of your own. Really striking couple of reflections as you were speaking. The first one is that fundamental unity of us all, and of course it's not just the VPs and the politicians at Davos, it's all matter around us. So that fundamental uniting basis to not just life but everything that exists on this planet and of course in the universe. And the second thing, just now what you said here about the fundamental discoveries, the fundamental research such as this, teach us how to look at problems and what it is that may be interesting. Exactly as Fabiola said, at first glance it seems all the shiny things are really interesting. And of course they are interesting. Exactly. More important is what's in between in part because that's the most mysterious aspect. And so let me start with the first question and please get yourselves ready. So I rather suspect that the image you're showing here is from the James Webb telescope, right? We've of course seen so many images already over the last few months, last month of the year. You illustrated very beautifully how recreating these very early moments in the history of the universe sheds light on that history. How does it compare the information that we're getting from a really powerful telescope like James Webb and the information that we get from experiments at So thanks for a very good question. So I showed a very complex image showing a picture of the evolution of the universe and they're showing on the two ends, the telescopes and the accelerators. So the two type of instruments are complementary. Telescopes try to look at the structure and evolution of the universe by looking at the macro objects, star galaxies, etc. And by looking at the farthest object, they allow us to go back in time. Accelerators are able to go back to primordial, more primordial epochs at times where light was trapped by the very dense early universe and could not escape. So it could never come to us. And so that's so accelerator can go farther back in time. And of course the information that comes from both is combined, can be and is combined and can give us a more complete understanding. Of course, as I said, there is still a lot to be understood. Dark universe, dark matter, dark energy, there are different interpretations for instance for the nature of dark matter. And so by combining also the information from telescope and particle accelerator and other experimental endeavour like big detector underground that look for instance the dark matter coming from the intergalactic halo and interacting with the detector itself, we can try to get the full picture in the right picture. Thank you. Any questions from the audience or comments? Please go ahead. There's a microphone coming to you. Ten years ago after you discovered the first Higgs boson particle, what is the next aim or goal of CERN? Thanks. Thanks. Well, it's too, you know, the goal of CERN is to address the goal of all scientific endeavours is to address the outstanding question. So the discovery of the Higgs boson allowed us to answer one of those questions, the origin of the masses of the elementary particle which is absolutely essential to understand why atoms are stable system and why we are here. The Higgs boson itself, it's a very special and very peculiar particle. It's part of this standard model of particle physics. I showed one slide without going into the details, but if you look at the details of the theory, all the problems in the standard model which describes very well the elementary particles and their interaction originates in terms related to the Higgs boson. We don't understand its mass. We don't understand fully the weight in couples. We don't understand the vacuum that is related also to the Higgs boson. So there are many, many questions that are related to it. Besides the Higgs boson itself, of course, what I said, dark matter for instance, if dark matter happens to be made of particles that have masses at the level of from a 100 gV to a few tV, it can be produced in proton-proton collision at CERN. If it's made of something different like primordial black holes, then other instruments are more suitable to or are suitable to detect it. So we will continue to address these open questions and I can tell you which one will be answered first. This is in the ends of nature, but of course it's very fascinating that we have those interesting questions, but also that we have learned with time what are the right questions to ask. You are next, I think. Just wait a second for the microphone. Thank you. Doctor, it's so fascinating and seems to me that there is such a big advancement and there is a disconnection sometimes between all this advancement and what kids are learning in school. And they still are being taught the very basics of the atoms and the electrons and the protons and not so much of what really is happening with the scientists like you have discovered. So the question is how could we help the scientists to actually take all these learnings and teachings to the younger kids and the younger generation that will come after you and hopefully advance beyond what you have achieved. Thank you. It's a very good question. It's true and now if you look at the textbooks at school, in some cases you find the standard model and maybe in some cases you find the expose on, but in most of them you don't. You find many classical mechanics, very little quantum mechanics, not even in the simplest term. I think it's very important that we scientists continue to communicate and to educate the younger generation. I would like to mention maybe a project that we are realizing at CERN, it's called the Science Gateway. We are building a new building complex where we will have of course exhibition and many interactive activities for the general public, but we will also have labs for kids starting at the age of five all the way up to 16 until they go to a university or so where the kids can come and do experiments with their own hands and understand what being a scientist means and this means having a question and a problem to solve, building the instruments, making the measures and share the results with their peers or the other kids at school and in their case with other scientists in our case. So I think if you all scientists in all our labs or research infrastructure try really to attract the public, we also have at CERN like in many other laboratories programs for the high school teachers that come and spend some time with us. This is also an important message because they get an update on modern physics and they can then make pressure so that you know the textbook and their teaching at school is up to date. There was a question in the middle and then at the front. Thank you for the presentation. Do you use artificial intelligence in a meaningful way in your research or if not are you planning to do? We do. We do and actually CERN is really very much on the front line for developing on machine learning and AI techniques of course because the problem that we have to solve is extremely complex when you look at these collisions of proton beams, you produce thousands of particles and so sometimes the signal that comes in the presence of particles that are produced very rarely like the expose on the expose is not produced so often. You need to extract very tiny signal from a large number of data so very complex analysis techniques and very complex algorithm and there is exactly where AI can help so really we are really using this and because our requirements are extremely stringent this is also CERN is also very often a test bed for companies developing AI or developing technologies on quantum now that can be used for more advanced algorithms and so yes. Is there a question here in the front row? Can we go with the front first please? Just here. Michael Leander from Denmark. First of all it's fascinating what you're telling and I'm still struggling by understanding that the most important is the darkness here so my question is when we come back in 10 years time do you expect that we will see more dots on this photo and then another question on the more political thing is you talked about open science which is also fascinating but how is that affected by the global geopolitical war between China and USA for example it's threatened this open science. So starting with the first question which is easier. I can't tell you if in 10 years from now we will we can you know put a name on the particles or the forces or whatever that can explain the dark universe this I can't tell you. I hope so at least for part of it dark matter which is maybe a little bit easier some quotes to solve it depends on really what nature has put out there of course but I can tell you that dark matter and dark energy are the objective of extremely broad class of scientific endeavors not only accelerator physics but also telescope and other studies and of course gravitational waves detection and study comes in so what we call multi-messenger astronomy so we are doing huge progress in the in the technologies and in our way of exploring the universe with very complementary instruments so I think that we we can get nice results I hope soon but I can't tell you when concerning open science for the time being you know the game of the rule at CERN is that what we do is open science and we have collaborators from the US we have collaborators from China and this has never been questioned it's a it's a value of CERN is a mission of CERN. If I may follow up on this I think you start you opened up with the second part of your question a really really interesting issue here about open science but also collaboration more broadly so this this openness information exchange I always think much of this research and indeed what you talked about in the context of CERN happens in an academic context but of course there's a research that happens in the private sector and relevant to this but also other disciplines and there is a I think an opportunity a real opportunity to consider how in an open collaborative way there may be exchange of of data and information in this sort of pre-competitive space yeah so right good point Magdalena so first of all um it's true that it's much easier to be open in an academic world in our case for instance we do not develop many technologies that have a potential dual use so you know it's so security issues are not so important and also also limiting on constraining in our case so it's much easier in the in the purely academic world than in in a private sector or at the level of government or activities that I have a link direct link with government security etc however it's also true that there are other fields where global sharing of data is not practice is not you know some medical fields for instance this was came up at the time of vaccine for instance so I think it's important that we try to to push for for open science for for data sharing and information of information of sharing of information because open science is as many virtuos first it boosts science itself because the more you change with other scientists the faster science goes second it maximizes the impact of science on society and third also is a very powerful means of reducing the inequities across the world because of course if everybody has access to science education and technology of course for free free of charge then of course you reduce the gap which today unfortunately is widening with the with the technology have a such a disruptive evolution disruptive in a positive sense and being extremely you know growing very fast the gap widens exactly and the impact on society you can also extend it into thinking in terms of trust in science right and and that of course is something that absolutely we the science community research community is very concerned with you mentioned vaccines we saw that exactly which can of course can help to fix the this real or perceived mistrust in in science through again open science and sharing technology and showing the impact of science but also through communication transparent communication this what I was mentioning before exactly other questions I think there was a question then there's a question here now thank you very much I'm the Italian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva including to CERN Giannarezzo Cornado I want to congratulate you for hosting this event and congratulate the director of Habida Gianotti for her presentation she's quite unique because she can explain very complicated issues to people who are not specialists and I believe there are very few people like Professor Giannotti capable to do that I have a lot of admiration for her I have a question on the universe thanks to the accelerator we are capable to study the origin of the universe you believe it will also be possible to predict the future evolution of the universe and to understand whether the universe after having had an origin will also have an end thank you so what we know I can answer I can answer by maybe elaborating a little bit on this concept of dark energy actually we have here in the room of Brian Schmidt the Nobel laureate who is the person who has understood within the group of Berkeley also that the universe is expanding today at an accelerated pace so you can imagine the initial explosion of the universe at the big bank and then explosion the universe expand and then and then course down I can imagine that at some point because of the gravity so the various masses formed because of the gravity then the various masses tend to implode and the universe at some point will implode and we go back to say the very initial state but we have discovered that something thinks about five billion years ago or so the universe started to expand again at an accelerated pace and we this we don't understand we think that there is a form of energy pressure so the scalar energy scalar force pressure that pushes the universe apart every single points away from each other and counterbalance the gravitational attraction so we are accelerating now at at at at an accelerated we are in accelerating expansion phase this is what we can tell today we have run out of time for any further questions I'm actually delighted to see how many questions that have been Fabiola that's credited to your ability to tell the story in this very very engaging way a couple of final comments I really want to emphasize for you that incredible fascination and hunger for understanding of the very fundamental properties of of matter and the universe around us and how that fundamental interest in getting to the bottom of everything that was around us and within us unites us all and you talked about collaboration among scientists from parts of the world who don't come together don't convene and not don't have a seat at the same table in really any other in any other situation and that's one power of science which I think we don't talk about glue enough absolutely it's a glue thank you very much thank you very much thank you