Hey! Jimmy here as a guest blogger. What an amazing time I had visiting CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) hosted by Freya, a hash friend from Brussels who happens to be one of the most senior scientists at the CMS particle detector that sits on the world’s largest supercollider ring.
It’s amazing that detecting particles that are smaller than almost anything man has ever imagined takes equipment as large as this. This shows a cross section of the CMS detector. Since the accelerator was in operation, we were not able to see the experiment itself; this picture is actually a huge canvas with a life-sized image of the experiment that lies directly 330 feet (100 meters) below.
The trip was the perfect mix of science, sport and socializing. The highlight of the sport portion of the trip was an incredible hash run at CERN. We weaved between and around buildings and even ended up hashing through several CERN buildings, including one with a small accelerator and into a labyrinth of steam tunnels. Pictured above is our hash pack at the end of the run straddling a demonstration portion of the accelerator tube, which is probably one ten-thousandth of the length of the accelerator ring that is buried directly beneath where we were sitting.
A nice place for a beer break. We stood in the shadow of giants as we enjoyed our brews in the shade behind this portion of an earlier generation particle detector that was used to discover several groundbreaking particles.
As for the science portion, that was absolutely fascinating! Packed in this elevator with 15 hashers, we went down, down, down 330 feet (100 meters) underground to visit the CMS particle detector.
Above ground the two Gauss meters I downloaded to my iPhone which measure magnetic fields looked pretty normal as seen in this composite picture.
After descending into the bedrock, my phone was feeling something that I clearly was not as the gauges here show... the one on the right is “off the charts” (this app does not go to 11). That’s a lot of Gauss, and yet somehow I couldn’t feel a thing.
If the readout on my phone was not warning enough, this sign is a pretty clear indication not to fool around with magnetic objects near the accelerator ring and even a half-baked president wouldn’t try to go through this door (or would he?).
Finally, there was the socializing. On Sunday after our hash trail through the CERN grounds, we walked through a few farms to a local wine festival. It was an incredible warm, sunny day and the wines were delicious.
After a long weekend, I was rewarded by amazing views of downtown Geneva.
No comments:
Post a Comment