Guestblog : Alice goes to CERN
Alice Sheppard will be well known to any of you who’ve been to the Galaxy Zoo forum where she does a sterling job as moderator. Not content with putting her to work there, when I heard she was going to particle physics lab CERN in Geneva along with her cohort of trainee teachers, I insisted that she write up her experiences for this site. I’m afraid this is long delayed - and that’s my fault, for which I apologise - but here’s the first installment of her trip diary. The rest will follow daily.
It was one end result of a stimulating and memorable six months for twenty-six future Chemistry teachers – an Enhancement Course at Sussex University for those whose degrees were a long time ago, or did not contain quite enough chemistry, to immediately qualify as a teacher of that subject. “I’ll bet you’ve all been told that matter is just protons, neutrons and electrons,” said Tim, our course leader. Well, science is never that simple, is it? Many of us now know about neutrinos, streaming out in their billions from the Sun and other stars. What few of us knew was quite how many fundamental particles can exist (if only for a few millionths of a second at a time), and just how much has been discovered 100m underground around the mountains of France and Switzerland.
Anyone can go to CERN. It’s a few minutes on the no. 9 bus from Geneva, and it’s easy to find your way around. You can visit the reception, shop and Microcosm (their museum); or groups can book a lecture and tour. We were able to do so, and in English – they are prepared for a range of nationalities. They even have a restaurant, but mind out for the small pieces of octopus in the salads.
On Monday 30th July, amid a bit of a shoe crisis (somebody’s shoes had broken and her feet were very painful; a few more were later momentarily floored to discover that open shoes are not allowed – until we discovered CERN has shoes visitors can borrow), we made our way into Room 33, the reception area. We had been preceded by a flurry of excited questions along the lines of, “You mean it’s true, that Dan Brown book?” and jokes such as “Have a smashing time.” At nine o’clock we had a superb lecture and video – though I recommend a little reading up on particle physics first! The few posts that follow are a mixture of the lecture notes I took and my additions, speculations and random ramblings.
on November 22nd, 2007 at 11:17 am
Finally!!
)
Good to see the blog here at last. I have been waiting what seems like an eternity for this to appear, since Alice first told me she was off to Cern.
Great work Alice - congrats to you and Chris.
I await the rest with excited anticipation…. Role on Summer 2008.
Bunny
on November 22nd, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Thanks Bunny!
And a huge thank you to Chris, who is doing himself an injustice up there at the top; this began as a piece of waffle for his interest, and it was his encouragement and suggestions for improvement that made it publishable. It’s an honour to be on your website! I hope everyone enjoys it, and perhaps more people will visit CERN one day, too.
on November 23rd, 2007 at 1:51 pm
[…] Continuing our first set of guest blogs at Chris Lintott’s Universe, this is the second part of Alice’s trip around CERN. The first part is here. […]
on November 25th, 2007 at 2:09 am
I had to go away and look up “sterling”. I thought that was what I brought to the bureau de change to get some Swiss francs from. I should also add - it’s pretty easy to find accommodation in Geneva, and hotels and hostels even give you bus passes for your stay!
Sadly it’s not possible to go underground at present - check the “Visit CERN” part of this website: http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html. Perhaps that’ll reopen some time . . .
on November 25th, 2007 at 11:17 am
[…] This is part 3 of Alice Sheppard’s trip to CERN, our first guest blog. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 here. […]
on November 28th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
[…] In the fourth and final part of the guestblog from Alice Sheppard, we conclude our trip to CERN with a pictorial look round the ATLAS detector. If you’d rather start at the beginning, then part one is here, part two here and part three here. I’d like to thank Alice for assuaging somewhat my annoyance that I’ve never made it to CERN, apologise again for taking so long to put these up, and to invite anyone else who might fancy guestblogging to email me. […]