Any1 been to CERN

[Anty]

Any1 been to CERN (geneva) i am going to go and was wondering if any1 had any advise or opinions about it. thx 4 responces

Anty

[Edited on 7-25-2004 by Anty]

[editor]

Give us a report after the visit.

[The Eternal Triangle]

I really wanted to go while I was in Europe in June/July this year. I was in Holland, and going to Geneva is more expensive than travelling anywhere else. Also the tours were all booked until August :(

[Fernanda]

I know a few friends that have gone there...I could ask some questions.

All I\'ve ever gone to is ORNL.

[editor]

Here\'s a report from a friend in Europe who went a few months ago.
A report on my visit to CERN.
The overview: Awesome!
One doesn\'t appreciate the size of this enterprise from the quoted numbers. It is just huge. The accelerator ring is 27km in circumference and is in a tunnel 100m down.It stretches from Lake Geneva back to the Jura mountains.
To put it into context, we were staying on the main site and we had a trip out to on of the new
experiment sensor stations being built for the new installation. It took a 20 minute coach trip to get
there!
These detectors are absolutely huge. You would be able to put your house in one.
Add to this that the Large Hadron Accelerator ring will have superconducting magnets (i.e cooled with
liquid helium) around the 27km and the mind boggles.
It is a very large site employing thousands, and multinational. There seemed to be a very open
environment with nothing held back. Everything goes into the public domain. It is also a very civilised
place to work. Lunch seemed to be a very leisurely affair, taken on the terrace in the sunshine. Many
employees seemed to take their families to lunch.
A lot of the ideas of early formation of the universe seem to be getting set on a firm foundation from
the particle accelerator programmes. The discovery of asymmetry for the weak force (i.e. the one
responsible for radioactive decay) is well established and is considered responsible for the
disappearance of anti-matter in the early universe.
The original aim of the LHC is the search for the Higgs boson, although there is a bit of hedging of
bets on that. The stated position seems to be that whatever the outcome of that experiment, we shall
better understand a theoretical basis for the creation of mass.

[Yasha]

WOW! CERN! I\'d love to be in your shoes right now :wink:
Have fun and give us a report when you come back :cool: