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CERN 2009 Expeditionsmall logo

CERN Expedition

Off to Geneva

18 pupils and 2 staff departed school on Friday 13th with some superstitious characters worried about flights. 

After a brief stop at Frankfurt airport we arrived safely and on time at Geneva.  (If the Edinburgh council need a model for public transport they should go to Geneva!). 

Finding somewhere for 20 to eat at 9.00pm in the evening was a little tricky but no one went hungry.

Highlights

Saturday saw us spend a morning in CERN’s museum, which helps not only to explain the history of this research centre (53 years old) but also the basics of how particle accelerators work.  In the afternoon we were taken across the border into France to the site of the LHCb experiment.  (LHC is short for Large Hadron Collider and b stands for the beauty or bottom quark which this experiment will test to see if it behaves differently from the anti – b quark). 

After an intensive day of Physics we retired to a small restaurant in the centre of Geneva where bibs were on hand for messy eaters!

At CERN

Sunday

CERN tripThe LHC and its experiments are out of bounds but we did venture 100m underground to see the DELPHI experiment (Detector for Leptons Photons and Hadrons) which has been parked next to LHCb.  The DELPHI experiment is impressive in its size and complexity and helped to develop the technology which is used in the new detectors for the LHC. It was gratifying to learn that the RICH (Ring Imaging Chernekov) detectors in the LHCb ( a progressive design from DELPHI) were designed by a team from Edinburgh University.

Sunday was spent following a treasure hunt provided by one of CERN’s staff.  This took us on a fascinating tour of Geneva which is a beautiful city.  We then attempted various experiments with 2 large towers of beer (how does pressure vary with the height of a column of liquid?) and collision experiments with pool balls.

Monday 

ATLAS detectorMonday was back to CERN where thanks to Mick Storr we:

(i) built our own muon detectors,

(ii) saw the office where the world wide web was born (and heard of Mr Storr's contribution to it),

(iii) saw the LEIR (Low Energy Ion Ring) accelerator,

(iv) walked around part of the anti–proton decelerator, the only anti matter factory in the world where we were warned not to touch anything!

And finally

CERN tripThis left us somewhat exhausted for the dash home - a flight to Frankfurt, a run through Frankfurt’s airport and a flight to Edinburgh arriving at 11:15 pm.

I think all would agree that you can learn and have a good time in tandem. 

N Armstrong
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