10 years since LEP began...

25 August 1999 Display high resolution image

The summer of 1989 saw the first collisions in the newly completed Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN. This image records smiles of relief in the LEP control room as the first beam circulated on 14 July. Left of centre (with dark tie) is Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia, who was then CERN's Director General. Right of centre (with glasses) is Herwig Schopper, the previous Director General who had done much to ensure that the LEP project was realised on time. By 13 August 1989 the machine was ready to make its counter-rotating beams of electrons and positrons collide head-on for the first time, and the physicists working on the four huge detectors located around LEP were rewarded with sight of their first Z particles - the neutral carriers of the weak force.

Credit: CERN Photo

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