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The Large Hadron Collider at the Cern laboratories in Switzerland
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June 9: The particle physics laboratories at the Cern laboratory in Switzerland may not sound like a bedrock of hard cash, fast cars and loose women.
But a steamy new novel written by a retired physicist lifts the lid on the organisation’s studious exterior to reveal an altogether more glamorous lifestyle of wild nights, adrenalin-fuelled sports and romantic trysts. Catalysed Fusion is described by its author Francis Farley, 91, as a “true-to-life fantasy woven around particle physics” set in 1980s Geneva — “the city where nations meet and particles collide”.
Based on 20 years of experience at the laboratory starting in its early days in 1957, Prof. Farley describes a group of young researchers whose groundbreaking work and racy private lives intertwine as they enjoy the high life at Switzerland’s top ski resorts and France’s best beaches.
Prof. Farley revealed that he even based a character on himself — Ivan, a physicist and crack glider pilot who is married to a former stripper and sets up a new lab on a nudist Mediterranean island. He told the Daily Telegraph: “We were well paid, we had diplomatic status, no taxes. We got tax-free petrol and drinks and we went out and enjoyed life. It is obviously hyped up for the book but it is the sort of thing that went on and I am sure is still going on.
“We worked hard and then some people would go home to their families but there were lots of little floozies about and other men had a roving eye, and so did some of the women.”
Prof. Farley’s esteemed career includes helping to develop microwave radar to control the Dover guns in World War II, and winning the Royal Society’s Hughes Medal in 1980 for his measurements of muons, a type of subatomic particle.
He now lives in the south of France but is still involved with a Southampton University project he spearheaded known as “Anaconda”, a giant rubber tube submerged beneath water which uses changes in pressure to generate energy from waves.
Prof. Farley admitted he had been concerned about the reaction of friends and former colleagues to some of the more erotic passages, including references to “wild sexual fantasies”, but said it had been well received.
“The librarian at Cern liked it very much and said they would stick it in the library. I was afraid people would be shocked by some of the sexy passages but they say it is reasonably tasteful — there are no four-letter words in it. I think it is reasonably delicate.”
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