Science RULES

On my 26th birthday I decided I wanted to celebrate by visiting the world famous scientific laboratory CERN. I was a little nervous that I wouldn't get a walk on spot on the tour so I showed up two hours early just in case.  A move that proved to be over kill. 

CERN or "The European Organization for Nuclear Research"   is world famous as a physics lab and for its particle acceleration. These accelerator tubes run under parts of France and Switzerland including where I am living in France. While I knew I would be unable to see the Large Hadron Collider nevertheless, I was super excited. After putting my name on a list and entertaining myself with a few different exhibits, I was added onto a tour. *CERN Tip* these tour book up three months in advance however, if you show up early, smile nicely and say "science rules" the tour guides look the other way and let you tag along. 

The tour started in typical European fashion. A 20 minute eight year old video during which the screen was blocked by a overhead projector. How can everything in Europe be simultaneously  better and worse than North America?

After the boring movie the fun started. A handsome young physicist  (They do exist!) led our tour telling us about the different projects that were being studied here. Including the Atlas project at the LHC. The general question the Atlas project is trying to answer (and there are many of them) is to prove or disprove the Higgs theory of particles gaining mass. Other questions that could be answered include the possibility of other dimensions and the nature of dark matter. Really exciting stuff. 

After explanations and questions abound, we continued on into the control room for the Atlas project. It was here that the proton neutrino collisions are registered and then sent to labs all over the world. As we tourists took pictures of the scientists like rock star, I wondered how many labs worldwide have tours much less tours with three month waiting lists. The control room wasn't much, just computers hooked up to laptops hooked up to more computers. What was interesting was to think about was was going on under our feet. Although its happening under my feet as I write this as well.

After the lecture in the control room we went upstairs to watch a 3d movie about the LHC which was underwhelming. As we left the building, we were ushered into this really neat museum/ planetarium which had interesting artifacts like.. THE WEB. Well the first web server that is. My favorite part of that exhibit was the note at the top of his thesis  "Vague but exciting", now if only I could get away with that in grad school.