Mark Benecke, forensic entomologist and international theatrical star, sends this review of the dining facilities at CERN, the vast particle physics laboratory located on and under both sides of the Swiss-French border, partly in Geneva. [This continues a long AIR tradition of reviewing dining facilities at science research facilities.]
Two of the restaurants (for U.S. Americans: “cafés”) at particle accelerating and detection facility CERN stand out: The nameless main eatery for staff and the public Big Bang Café.
In the main eatery, vegan food is available and much requested but the math somehow does not work out: The plant-based items are sold out often whilst the non-vegan food is plentiful. Staff could not yet figure out how to change the imbalance — observations are clear but a solid theory or algorhytm seems to be missing. Is antimatter involved? (CERN is the only place on earth where anti particles are produced.)
Prices in the eatery are comparably low; a dish that would cost four-fold in Geneva — the next large city — is sold here for a fourth of the price.
The public eatery is much smaller but due to it s catchy name pulls a crowd, too. A posh menu on the wall shows a receipe of how to “bake a universe”. It is done by mixing 27% dark matter with 68% dark energy and 5% atoms or “ordinary” matter. Further instructions read: “While the space expands very rapidly, the cosmic soup starts to cool.”
The regular food offers sound exotic and include the Little Neutron menu (staff did not know if this means Neutrinos) with apple sauce as well as cosmic cups, for example a glass of milk with a cookie or 300 milliliters of ginger syrup.
The time at Big Bang Café is give by an original Rolex timepiece. It is mounted under the ceiling, probably so that it may not be easily snatched.
If you found this review interesting, check my ‘scientific dining’ column in Annals of Improbable Research, Vol. 7(4): 19-21 (2001).