CERN

Most of Alain’s coworkers and friends don’t know that, as a teenager, CERN was practically his cool backyard lab. He used to go there weekly to borrow 8mm films, hopping on a bus after school (now a tram, which is a light rail) and sharing some of the most fascinating discoveries with his friends. The first film he remembers watching was about Gargamelle, the bubble chamber that made the invisible visible—though even then, it was already considered an old detector.

Before moving to Arizona, the last big CERN breakthrough Alain followed was the study of antimatter and positrons—an electrifying discovery, even though their lifespan was only a millionth of a second. He was so captivated that he even wrote an essay on the subject, theorizing that when antimatter meets matter, it’s like the reverse of world creation.

To celebrate, he had to paint the accelerator—reimagining the collision detector as a figure (a person) named Collipac (Capture Orbs, Luminous Light In Particles And Collisions—the first letter of each word).