Day 3 - Geneva, Switzerland (CERN)

March 14, 2012

Warning: Contains science content and lots of it!
This blog post is specifically about my visit to CERN. If you want to know about my trip to Geneva then please read my previous blog post.

Oh where shall I start...
I guess the beginning is good. In the beginning there was nothing, nothing at all.
"The whole universe was in a hot dense state..." (everyone sing!)
There were no stars, no atoms, and no structure. Space then began to expand, quickly. Fast forward 14 billion years and here I am.

First two pictures are of me! :) 

Bottom left picture: Largest ring is the LHC (aka Large Hadron Collider). It is 27 km (17 miles) long. It lies deeply in the ground of both France and Switzerland. The smaller ring is the SPS (Super Proton Synchrotron). The SPS is 6.9 km (4 miles) long.
Bottom middle and right: Pictures taken out in front of CERN.

Just some background information, CERN is the worlds largest particle physics research center. It employees over 2,400 people, plus approx. 7,500 outsourced scientist. They represent 608 universities and research facilities and more than 113 nationalities. CERN's funding comes from many countries, and no one country has jurisdiction over CERN. This includes Switzerland and France where CERN is located. Since 1954 CERN's goals were always clear, bringing countries together, regardless of religion or politics, in the name of science!  CERN's mission statement:

• Research: Seeking and finding answers to questions about the Universe
• Technology: Advancing the frontiers of technology
• Collaborating: Bringing nations together through science
• Education: Training the scientists of tomorrow

Now onto my adventure. The first part of the CERN journey begins with a tour I planned 3 months in advance. My tour guide was named Bill Murray (picture below). No joke! I about died when he said that! Too funny! He made it very clear that he was a experimental physicist and not a theoretical one. I just wish everyone would get along. It all goes to the same goal people. The tour was cool. It lasted about 2 hours. First we watched a short video about CERN and then we proceeded to the ATLAS (A Torodial LHC Apparatus) building. ATLAS is one of a few detectors hooked up the the LHC. I did not get to see that actual ATLAS, but for your convience I pulled a picture off the internet for you. This thing is big! The ATLAS building features a mural of the detector. However, the mural is not drawn to scale. Actually the building is not even big enough to draw it to scale. Yep, you read that right. Scale that mural up x1.6 and then you will have the true size of ATLAS. ATLAS is currently looking for the Higgs boson particle. The Higgs boson is more commonly referred by the media as the "god particle". It is speculated to be found by the end of this year. I also got to see the actual ATLAS control room. I did not get to go inside, but viewed it through a glass wall (picture below).

And that my friends pretty much sums up the tour. CERN is an extremely large place, but not open to the general public. :( However, there were two exhibitions I was able to check out. Microcosm is the first exhibit. As stated by CERN, "In this exhibition you will explore the mysteries of the universe and discover the massive apparatus used by physicists, the accelerators and detectors, and see how each part works!" This exhibit was rather informative. Here are a few pictures:

Left: Model of ATLAS

Middle: Model of the LHC

Right: UAI Central Detector

The last exhibit was called "Universe of Particles" and it was held in the Globe. As explained by CERN, Particle like "...interactive kiosk illustrating CERN's quest for knowledge and recounting the international cooperation and technological advances which underpin this incredible research venture." The touch screen kiosk offered games and vast amounts of information at your finger tips. Super Cool! There was also a short light show of the Big Bang. Enjoy the pictures:

Okay guys, that sums up my trip to CERN. Sorry if I left you wanting more, but that is how science works. For every one question answered, ten more are asked...