Odishatv Bureau
Geneva: President Pratibha Patil today visited the prestigious France-based European Organisation for Nuclear Research, commonly known as CERN, where she patted Indian scientists for their contributions to cutting edge research work.

Patil, who is on a state visit to Switzerland, drove to CERN that is situated just minutes away from the Swiss border.

An inquisitive Patil, who was left mesmerized by the centre known for its cutting edge research work in physics, left CERN`s Director General Rolf-Dieter Heuer pondering for answers on many occasions.

Patil took a round of the centre and went 70 metres underground to get a first-hand look at the 27 km long tunnel, where the Large Hadron Collider experiment was conducted recently.

The experiment had aimed to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang, when the universe is thought to have exploded into existence about 14 billion years ago.

The President visit to the centre began with a powerpoint presentation on India`s contribution to the entire project.

"I am impressed by this global collaborative effort at CERN, which is working to solve the fundamental issues of physical science and which has the potential of having positive spin offs for mankind," she said.

"I am also proud at the continuing contributions of Indian scientists here," the president told.

The focus of the visit was the ALICE project, one of the largest experiment in the world devoted to the research in the physics of matter at an infinitely small scale, particular, for the study of Quark Gluon Plasma in the laboratory.

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