What the Universe is made of ? What is the nature of the physical laws that make life possible ? Why is there something rather than nothing? These are some of the long-standing questions that drive our endless quest to learn. Human curiosity, creativity and collaboration are the three keys to crack the CODE of the UNIVERSE.

This is what this exhibition is about! As curators we aimed to show how our effort to understand the universe and its inner workings, has lead to an array of new scientific breakthroughs and technological leaps.

In 60 years, our knowledge of forces and matter at the smallest scales, developed into a sound theory – the Standard model. In the turn of the 21st century, the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN completed this picture. And yet, the Standard Modern remains an incomplete description of nature leaving many unanswered questions. Why antimatter and matter were not created in equal parts at the start of the Universe? If they had been, they would have annihilated each other, leaving behind a featureless void. What’s the constituents of dark matter that bind galaxies together? What is the dark energy that pushes the universe apart at an accelerating rate? We still need to improve our understanding of the universe and its origins.

The awesome complexity of the world around us doesn’t stop to surprise and inspire our future scientific endeavour. The exhibition discusses the open questions in modern physics, the role of particle accelerators as powerful microscopes that can probe the tiniest scales of matter and highglights concrete applications that innovative accelerator technologies have in our daily lives. Pphotography can best capture the efforts to transcend the visible in search for answers about the cosmos and scientist’s rich fabric of emotions and unique experiences. Through these photos, we aim to share stories about the recent achievements in fundamental research, the knowledge obtained through collaboration and the technological breakthroughs that will allow us to continue this journey of discovery.

Pushing further the boundaries of human knowledge and answering major existential and scientific questions, calls for fresh ideas, young talent and more sophisticated scientific tools! The exhibition “CODE of the Universe” invites you to think, feel and reflect on the long path towards some recent scientific achievements and how frontier research shapes our world.