Journey back 40 years to relive the excitement of hunting for the W boson at CERN, with an exclusive screening of the 1983 BBC documentary The Geneva Event on Thursday, 30 November from 1.00 p.m. in the Main Auditorium https://indico.cern.ch/e/geneva-event.

The BBC Horizon team captured Carlo Rubbia in his element as it followed physicists and engineers at the SPS and the UA1 and UA2 experiments from 1978 to 1983 on the path to one of the most important discoveries in particle physics. Catch a glimpse of old control rooms, the expanding CERN sites and newly installed state-of-the art technology. The documentary also features the first antiproton beams, retro animations, lectures by Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam, as well as former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s visit to CERN.

Scientifically robust, this classic documentary film offers a rare insight into the technological challenges and personal stories behind large physics experiments.