Thursday 20^th April 9

After a beautiful Swiss breakfast we boarded a bus and headed back to Geneva to visit the CERN ( European Centre of Nuclear Research ). We arrived at the CERN at nine o’clock in the morning and walked the administration building where we met our tour guide whose name was Nathalie. Nathalie first took us to a conference room where she told us what we would be doing on our tour and showed us a video telling us a bit about the history of the CERN, some basic physics and what exactly the CERN does. After our conference we were split into groups and took a shuttle bus to the other side of the complex and walked around to take a look some of the machines and explored the different buildings they use including the ‘grid’ section which holds all the computer data for the different units at CERN.

Nathalie talked to us about the Large Hadron Collider (also known as the LHC). The LHC is 27km long ring shaped tunnel situated 100meters below ground to protect it from the harsh Switzerland elements. This depth also means that a large amount of Geneva and its surrounds is not taken up by the massive machine. The LHC is used to accelerate two beams of particles in opposite directions to around  99.9% the speed of light. The LHC smashes the beams together in special chambers which catch the debris shower of new particles created by the collision for the physicists to study. The LHC was built for the physicists to try and recreate the conditions one hundredth of a millisecond after the big bang which created the primidial particles of which everything else evolved from as these particles faded and we destroyed not long after the Big Bang.

After our tour through the workshops and having a geeze at the first built particle accelerators built in the 1950’s which are still in use today. For lunch we were shown to one of the restaurants located at the CERN. Lunch was amazing it had a variety of just about everything so no one would miss out. We learned that CERN in itself is basically a little town with an infirmary (which Maddie used as she was sick today) as well as three buildings that are hotels for the employers and visitors to the CERN, they also have cafeterias and different offices for near any need you can think of. I found CERN to be extremely interesting and educational and as I listened to what Nathalie said I found myself wishing I was a physics student and that I wanted a career in that field.

With the education over we spent some time exploring some of the CERN’s grounds as we waited for our bus to return and take us back to the Geneva train station from which we would later depart for Paris. After fifteen minutes or so on the bus we found ourselves with a fair bit of free time on our hands upon arrival. Taking shifts to guard the bags we all found time to do some shopping and experience some local foods and stores that we don’t get to see at home. After this relaxing afternoon recharging and resupplying we boarded the high-speed TGV train and got ready for our three hour trip to Paris.

    By Matthew and Eliza W

                                                     Our tour of the CERN

Mr. V