If you have ever been to CERN you know that the building numbers here don’t make a damn bit of sense. If they do follow any kind of scheme, it’s not a scheme that helps you find buildings.

Building 3 is adjacent to 4, but connecting them is building … 58! About one km away is building 57. And no, it’s not chronological, because the most recent one built was 41, whereas certain older buildings are labeled in the 800′s.

Well today is a big day in my life, for I’ve just discovered, after seven years of bafflement, that there is a method behind the madness! The method, it turns out, is stupid as hell. It is revealed by this single-slide PowerPoint presentation:

building numbering revealed

building numbering revealed

We are eternally grateful to M. Fabrice Chapuis for finally bringing this to light.

I’d like to highlight some features of this numbering scheme:

  1. Buildings 400-499 are reserved for “Roads, Car Parks, Storage Zones”. Wait, what? Buildings ≠ Roads.
  2. Buildings 1000-1099 are reserved for “Roads, Car Parks, Storage Zones”. Buildings ≠ Roads.
  3. Almost every building at CERN could be called an office building, because they almost all have mostly offices in them.
  4. There are three CERN Hostel buildings, a budget onsite hotel for visitors. Two of these, 38 and 41, are rare examples of buildings with no offices whatsoever. Yet they are classified under “Offices and Laboratories.”
  5. Why use such limited number ranges? For example, we’re already up to 188 out of 199 under “Workshops, Warehouses and Garages.” And by the way, 188 is mostly an office building.
  6. Why is there a gap between 549 and 860? This will slowly drive me insane, if I’m not already.

I guess I’m glad to finally know the secret, but I think my head is going to explode anyway.