CERN - Day 3
We should have mentioned that the winners of the Geneva Treasure Hunt were Mairi, Shannan, Ruairaidh, Maxence and Jonathon. Each were presented with a souvenir pen from CERN. Mrs Hayes assured then it was a lucky Physics pen and should be used in all Physics exam.
It was an early start this morning – a struggle for some it has to be said. We were out of the hostel by 8am and on our way to CERN.
We started with an introductory talk from Bill Murray who works on the Atlas experiment – they are the ones who discovered the Higgs Boson – and a film clip explaining what happens at CERN. We were then taken by coach to the super conducting magnet test facility. Here, we were able to see inside the the collider itself and could identify the beam tubes, the magnets, the steel holding it all together etc. With two beams of protons travelling in different directions – well, actually pulses - you need a very strong electric field to accelerate them and a very strong magnetic field to focus the beams and a very strong magnetic field to keep them travelling in a circle. This all needs a very high current – 10,000 Amperes, if I remember correctly – so everything gets very hot. We need it to be superconducting so everything is cooled to 1.8K, which is colder than space. This is done with liquid helium. We were all fascinated with the Physics and with the engineering which has made the experiments possible.
We again travelled by coach, this time to the CMS cavern. The driver directed our group through a door where we should find our guide. There were 5 or 6 engineers who stared at us and we waited, and waited but no guide. I spoke to the Americans in our group who had led the way into the CMS facility to make sure we were in the correct place. They had spoken to the engineers but did not speak French so were none the wiser. Maxence to the rescue! A quick chat in French, a couple of phonecalls and we were united with our guides.
Hard hats on and we decended into the CMS cavern 100m below the surface. With the LHC switched off, the CMS equipment was opened for maintenance and again we were able to see inside the detector and could identify the parts used to track and identify particles produced in the collisions. The detector is 15m in diameter and is described as compact! Once again, we were overwhelmed at the scale of the experimental work here in CERN.
We lunched in the CERN restaurant spotting potential nobel prize winners, counting the number of languages and being seriously impressed at the quality of the food in their ‘fuel zone’
We left CERN around 4pm and had a couple of hour to unwind before going out to dinner. Maxence, Ruaiaridh, Mairi and Mr Swan opted for the Cheese fondue. Mr Swan felt his arteries narrow with every dip of the bread but did not give up and the 4 fonduers made it to the bottom of the pot. The fondon’ts dined on pizza and a good night was had by all. There was much laughter and skipping as we made our way back to the hostel for the last night.
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