science

Les Horribles Cernettes

Les Horribles Cernettes is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Les Horribles Cernettes rather than just read about it. In short: Les Horribles Cernettes (French pronunciation: [le.z‿ɔʁiblə sɛʁnɛt], "The Horrible CERN Girls") was an all-female parody pop group, self-labelled "the one and only High Energy Rock Band", which was founded by employees of CERN and performed at CERN and other HEP-related events. Their main claim to fame is that a photograph of them was the earliest photographic image shared on the World Wide Web.

Key takeaways

Les Horribles Cernettes belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Les Horribles Cernettes to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Les Horribles Cernettes from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Les Horribles Cernettes (French pronunciation: [le.z‿ɔʁiblə sɛʁnɛt], "The Horrible CERN Girls") was an all-female parody pop group, self-labelled "the one and only High Energy Rock Band", which was founded by employees of CERN and performed at CERN and other HEP-related events. Their main claim to fame is that a photograph of them was the earliest photographic image shared on the World Wide Web. Their musical style is often described as doo-wop. The initials of their name, LHC, are the same as those of the Large Hadron Collider, which was later built at CERN. Their humorous songs are freely available on their website.

History Les Horribles Cernettes was founded in 1990 by Michele de Gennaro, a graphic designer at CERN, whose romantic relationship with a physicist was made difficult by his shift work pattern. She attracted attention by stepping on stage during the CERN Hardronic Festival, singing "Collider", a melancholy song about the lonely nights endured by the girlfriend of a high energy physicist.

I gave you a golden ring to show you my love You went to stick it in a printed circuit To fix a voltage leak in your collector You plug my feelings into your detector You never spend your nights with me You don't go out with other girls either You only love your collider Your collider.

The group was subsequently formed with the help of Silvano de Gennaro, an analyst in the Computer Science department at CERN, who wrote additional songs. The fame of Les Horribles Cernettes grew and they were invited to international Physics conferences and The World '92 Expo in Seville, as well as celebrations such as Georges Charpak's Nobel Prize party. At the same time the band self-released an album titled Collider through CD Baby and received press coverage from numerous newspapers, including The New York Times, The Herald Tribune, La Tribune de Genève, and the CERN Courier. The band's lineup has changed over time, but they were performing under the same name until 21 July 2012, when the band had its final performance, which was at CERN's Hardronic Festival in Switzerland. The band went into hiatus when Silvano and Michele moved away from the CERN area and officially disbanded in late July 2012, after performing at the CERN Hardronic Festival on the 21st. Lynn Veronneau has since embarked upon a serious solo career, recording French language versions of popular standards. Angela Higney also made several solo releases. On July 15, 2017, and in celebration of their 25th anniversary (of their historic exposure on the World Wide Web), the original members performed for a one-time-only concert in Geneva. In May 2020 the band released a new song titled "The Lockdown Song" referencing to the events of COVID-19 pandemic. On September 17, 2024, the band performed at CERN in celebration of the organisation's 70th anniversary.

First photo on the Web Les Cernettes is the subject of the first photo of a band and one of the first photos on the Web:

Back in 1992, after their show at the CERN Hardronic Festival, my colleague Tim Berners-Lee asked me for a few scanned photos of "the CERN girls" to publish them on some sort of information system he had just invented, called the "World Wide Web". I had only a vague idea of what that was, but I scanned some photos on my Mac and FTPed them to Tim's now famous "info.cern.ch". How was I to know that I was passing a historical milestone, as the one above was the first picture of a band ever to be clicked on in a web browser!

Silvano de Gennaro had taken the picture above on July 18, 1992 with a Canon EOS 650.

Discography

Collider (album)

Track listing

Singles "The Lockdown Song" - 2020

Other songs The song performed at the CERN Hardronic '98 festival:

"Goodbye Sweet CERN" New 2007 songs presented for the first time in the CERN 2007 Hardronic festival:

"Big Bang" "Mr. Higgs"

Music videos

See also Trojan Room coffee pot "Large Hadron Rap" by Katherine McAlpine Filk music

References

External links Les Horribles Cernettes Home Page Cernettes Band Profile on YouTube The CERN MusiClub

James Gillies, CERN (1998-11-03). "Making a song and dance about physics". Cern Courier. Archived from the original on 2010-11-12. Retrieved 2008-03-21. Band history and evolution

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Les Horribles Cernettes

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Les Horribles Cernettes claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Les Horribles Cernettes before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Les Horribles Cernettes ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Les Horribles Cernettes

In research: Les Horribles Cernettes appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Les Horribles Cernettes in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Les Horribles Cernettes is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics English-language Swiss musical groups, European girl groups, Filkers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Les Horribles Cernettes outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Les Horribles Cernettes in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Les Horribles Cernettes means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Les Horribles Cernettes out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Les Horribles Cernettes in simple terms?

Why does Les Horribles Cernettes matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Les Horribles Cernettes?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Les Horribles Cernettes.