Curating the collider: using place to engage museum visitors with particle physics
Name
2023-11-16_CuratingTheColliderIssue02_FINAL.pdf
Description
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Size
1.67 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (CRC64NVME)
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Resource type
Journal article
Creator (person)
Boyle, Alison
Cliff, Harry
Date published
October 8, 2014
Abstract
CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle physics facility, provides museological opportunities and challenges. Visitor interest in cutting-edge physics, with its high media profile, is tempered by anxiety about understanding complex content. The topic does not readily lend itself to traditional museum showcase-dominated displays: the technology of modern particle physics is overwhelmingly large, while the phenomena under investigation are invisible. For Collider, a major temporary exhibition, the Science Museum adopted a ‘visit to CERN’ approach, recreating several of the laboratory’s spaces. We explore the effectiveness of this approach, at a time when historical studies of scientific laboratories and museum reconstructions of spaces are subject to renewed interest.
Journal title
Science Museum Group Journal
Issue
2
Publisher
Science Museum Group
eISSN
2054-5770
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright