A Welcome to New Readers and Final Thoughts

Hey World!

Welcome to my blog about my trip to CERN and Geneva, Switzerland. If this is the first entry that you have read, my name is Carolyn and I am a student at Phillips Academy Andover. I recently was a finalist for an award at my school called the Lorant Fellowship for the "Most Earnest Endeavor." As the award is described, it is awarded to the student with the "greatest fire in the belly to succeed." Because I was a finalist (one of the top three), my next step was to submit a proposal to take a trip somewhere to do something that followed a previously established interest. Since I had just taken College Physics at Andover and will be taking AP Physics next year, I decided to propose to travel to Switzerland to visit CERN and the largest particle accelerator ever made called the LHC. Please read my first entry of this blog for more details about the LHC, CERN and this trip. I was eventually sponsored by various Chairs at my school (the heads of the departments) to go to Switzerland. 

My purpose for the trip has been to go and find out about the LHC and then bring that information back to my community in a way that all of us "average" people, those who don't have PhD's in Physics, can understand. This blog is only the first step of that endeavor. I hope to write a newspaper article describing my trip and the Physics that I learned, and give a talk at school. The reason that I believe that it is important to bring this information back and to broadcast it like I am is because the experiment known as the LHC that is occurring at CERN is the most influential thing that has happened in Physics in a long time...it could have the most major impact on Physics since Newton's or Einstein's developments. In addition, I wanted to learn about the ways that the scientists have been coping with the problems that come from such a hugely international endeavor. I have been told during my trip that around 10,000 people worldwide are involved with the LHC experiment, and yet, despite the fact that they are all from different areas and those areas may have political tensions, the scientists have been able to find ways around those problems. Not only that, but the scientists have been working around those problems for 20 years. Of course, there is still politics involved as with anything that requires government funding and organization, but with the LHC, things still seem to work smoother than I might have expected. Perhaps, if we but take a look at the way these Physicists can work together and sacrifice for the common goal of building the LHC, we could learn something about how our governments can work better together as well.  

In addition, I have to mention one of the reasons I became interested in Physics in the first place. My grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico during World War II. I find this fact an interesting and slightly troubling detail, but his Physics background intrigues me. Of course, my grandfather was an extremely peaceful Physicist who somehow got caught up with the politics of his time. But, since I never met him, this trip and this summer was a way for me to get in touch with that Physics side of my family as well. 

I have to say that I have grown with this trip in ways that I never thought I would. I never realized how much I was in the Andover bubble until I left to go see a different lifestyle for a little while. In addition, I have been humbled by the people in whose presence I have recently found myself and I have learned about a world that I never knew existed...and yes, I do mean both the world of particle Physics and the world of the Physicists themselves. Finally, I have learned that the only way to accomplish anything in this world is to take action and ask about it. Had I sat idly by and not bothered to ask Katie if it would be possible for me to visit CERN, I would surely have missed this extraordinary opportunity. In fact, many people told me that there was no way a trip, such as this, could happen. Many believed that the Physicists wouldn't have the time nor would they care to sit down and teach a high school student what they were doing. Others thought that I might be able to go, but that I still just wouldn't be able to understand the Physics because it would be too complicated. Had I listened to those people, I would have missed this chance. 

But I didn't, and I am extremely glad I didn't. I made friends with Katie, ate lunch with her friends every day, met some of the best minds that the world of science has to offer and even went down underground to see the experiments themselves. I learned more Physics than I ever thought that I would ever learn...I mean, let's be serious, I had never heard of quarks, gluons, antimatter or Higgs bosons before I came to CERN. In addition, I got to travel to Geneva and practice my French. I think I spoke much more French in Geneva, in fact, than when I went to Paris for it seems that less people speak English in Geneva. Perfect! 

Of course, I can't be too corny and say that "my entire view of the world has completely changed." That would be unrealistic. All that I am saying is that when I open up a newspaper and see an article about the LHC, I'll read it. When anybody brings up CERN in a conversation, I'll be able to talk with them. When I walk into AP Physics this Fall, I'll be able to do that with a certain confidence, knowing that not all Physics is about the grade or the test, but that it's really something that's just, well, fascinating. 

I hope that you enjoy reading this blog, and that you learn a little bit while you read. If you ever go to Geneva, Switzerland in the near future, I would advise that you go to the Microcosm at the Reception Centre...it's a small museum that CERN created about the LHC experiment and it helped me tremendously with wrapping my head around all these Physics details. 

One last thing, if you are reading this blog and you don't feel you have time for the entire thing (I understand that it is long) I recommend that you read the entries titled "Day 1: Introduction to CERN, Steve Nahn and CMS," and "Day 3: John Ellis, the CERN Control Centre and the SM18 Magnet Facility." If you also have time, the entry titled "An Overview of CERN and the LHC Experiment" gives a good view of some of the Physics involved as well as the entry titled "Day 2: Katie, Seth Zenz and the ATLAS Experiment."

Thanks for reading!

-Carolyn

Day 5: Final Meetings and ALPHA

Hey World!

So, we have finally reached the point where I am about to describe my last day at CERN. Now, not to get all corny or anything, but in all seriousness, the week was long and hard, and writing this blog has been long and hard, but it has been quite the experience and I shall always remember it. Before that e-mail from the Lorant Fellowship committee, I never would have thought that I would visit the largest and most important Physics experiment in the world. Even on the first day at CERN, I had never heard of such things as quarks or gluons before. Yet, here I am, two weeks later able to explain these bizarre concepts to you! I have to say, after this trip, I am super excited and totally confident that I can take on AP Physics at Andover. But I'll save some of these personal thoughts for the last entry...first, I must discuss my last day at CERN. 

DAY 5:

Day 5 at CERN was filled with A LOT of meetings and if sounds like I was running every which way throughout this description going from one to another, you're right, I was. I arrived at the CERN Reception Centre at 9:00 am to wait for Katie. As usual, she was headed somewhere so I just jumped into her wake and followed her back to the ATLAS experiment where I met Katherine Copic, a postdoctorate affiliated with Columbia University. A bouncy person, Katherine seemed to be having the time of her life working at CERN, and taking time away from her work to visit with me did not seem to dampen her spirits at all. Well, by this time, I was an "old hat" at conducting interviews and our conversation took off in many different directions. Here is what I found:

Katherine WAS having the time of her life working at CERN. She was not afraid to take weekends off from work (despite the fact that many Physicists seem to work through weekends) and often went on fantastic trips with her friends...after all, she is living on the boarder of Switzerland and France. Of all the Physicists, I believe she had the best story about how she became involved with Physics. Apparently, she was studying to be a Political Science Major when she took a Physics course as an undergraduate and decided to change majors! Well, let me tell you, being a person drawn to many often dramatically different interests, such a story definitely resonates with me. My two favorite courses at school are Physics and English...since when have you ever heard of those two as a combination? In addition, the fact that I will be soon entering college and will be picking a major made Katherine's story of indecision all the more relevant to me. At this point in my life, I could go in any direction academically that I please. So, while I have some sort of idea what area I will major in, I can definitely see these plans shift as Katherine's did. But judging by the way Katherine's life has played out so far, changing one 's major is okay. And, that's a comforting thought!

Then, our conversation turned to how Katherine chose to work on ATLAS and how she became affiliated with Columbia. From this part of the conversation, I learned about an entire hierarchical world of research, from Professors down to graduate students and postdocs. Apparently, after graduate school (which could take a long time), if a student still wants to become a Physicist the next step is to do a postdoctorate somewhere. Often, professors at colleges will not only teach, but will direct their own research teams as well. A research team could be a professor working at the school who is in charge of the operation, and then 5 or 6 postdoctorate students and graduate students underneath who are working on site at CERN. In Katherine's case, then, a professor at Columbia offered her a job to work on ATLAS at CERN. Other colleges offered her jobs to work on other parts of the LHC, but the Columbia job was the most "hands on" according to Katherine. 

After an hour conversing with Katherine, Katie then rushed me over to meet Dan Miner of the University of Rochester which took place again in the relaxed environment of the cafeteria. There is no other way to describe Dan except that he was a one man show. He was wearing, yes, a bright hawaiian t-shirt which I think shows how much pure fun he was having at CERN. Yet, despite the craziness of the hawaiian t-shirt, he always had a serious brooding side as well. I discovered while talking to him that not only was he having a "blast" at CERN, but that he was also there to find out as much as he could about the Universe. The way he described it, I think that he had always had this drive to find out about the unknown, to solve some of the mysteries about why humans are living and what makes the world and life possible. I don't know about you, reader, but I certainly know that I have a little bit of that in me as well. Well, Dan had decided to do something about this thirst for answers, and that is what had led him to CERN. He also managed to give the best answer to a question that I received all week. I asked him if he thought that humans would ever totally understand the entire Universe. His answer was that he hoped not, because then he would be out of job!

Next, I rushed over to the lobby in front of the cafeteria. I knew my way around so well by this point that Katie didn't even need to meet me to show me where to go. I am lucky, however, that I found my next interview because I had no idea what he was going to look like.

After waiting for several minutes, though, my fears of not finding my next meeting were put to rest as a kindly looking middle-aged Physicist in shorts and a t-shirt came up to me and shook my hand. This Physicist was Jeffrey Hangst of the University of Aarhus and he happened to be the head of the ALPHA experiment, an experiment not actually associated with the LHC, but another one sponsored by CERN. I was meeting with him to get an idea of the other aspects of CERN for CERN is not exclusively about the LHC. 

Jeffrey Hangst, I soon found out, was not only about to spend a considerable chunk of his time teaching me about the ALPHA experiment, but he had actually come in from his vacation as well! Nowhere else would you find someone so excited about their job that they were willing to take a break from their vacation to tell you about it. But that is what CERN is like! 

I also soon found out that Mr. Hangst was no ordinary Physicist either. Like John Ellis, he was a big deal in disguise! Jeffrey Hangst could be on his way to winning a Nobel Prize with the ALPHA experiment...in fact, some say that with the ALPHA experiment, he could have done enough to have already won the Nobel Prize! Imagine my surprise when halfway through the meeting I discovered such astounding facts about the person I was speaking with. It was like discovering suddenly that you are in the presence of greatness and should have been groveling on the ground to that person instead of speaking to them in a natural manner. I had the same feeling with John Ellis as well (see below entry about him).

So, what is ALPHA and how has it made Jeffrey Hangst such an acclaimed name in Physics?  The ALPHA experiment is a completely different experiment from any of those on the LHC. Let me repeat, ALPHA is not involved with the LHC in any way. It is another experiment sponsored by CERN. However, while the LHC is considered a high energy/high intensity experiment, the ALPHA experiment is considered a high precision experiment. In other words, the LHC merely smashes particles together...the ALPHA experiment attempts to control particles so that they can be studied.

Essentially, ALPHA is interested in the topic of antimatter. Just to make sure you are all with me, I will explain the concept of antimatter again. Do you remember how in a previous entry I explained that according to the proven theory of antimatter, all particles have a partner particle that is exactly the same as the original particle except for the fact that it is oppositely charged? So, for example, up and down quarks have up and down antiquarks, protons have antiprotons and electrons have positrons. When antimatter and matter collide, they annihilate. At the beginning of the Universe, matter and antimatter coexisted in equal amounts. However, for some reason, matter triumphed over antimatter back then, and so now it is only matter that naturally exists. Lucky for us, of course, because if antimatter did exist in equal amounts as matter, the two would collide, everything would annihilate and life as we know it could never exist. But, as I said before, the main question when dealing with such concepts is the following: what happened to all that antimatter? Many people think that solving such a huge question could lead us to fascinating conclusions about how our Universe came to exist, and why it acts the way it does. Before I go any further I should also mention that antimatter itself is an old idea...in fact, its been around since the 1930's. It is also a confirmed old idea, that is, we know that antimatter can be created. 

What does ALPHA have to do with any of this antimatter craziness? It intends to study the problem of antimatter's disappearance right after the Big Bang. In fact, many of ALPHA's workers have already made huge strides in the antimatter area with their last project ATHENA. In 2002, ATHENA was able to make low-energy antihydrogen. Basically, in the same way that one would make normal hydrogen (with one proton and one electron), the scientist use one antiproton and one antielectron, otherwise known as a positron, to make antihydrogen. The ATHENA project was the first time that such a creation had ever been made, and that is why Jeffrey Hangst, the ATHENA Physics coordinator or in other words one of the heads of the experiment, could win a Nobel Prize already. Unfortunately, Mr. Hangst told me that he thought merely creating antihydrogen would not be enough  for a Nobel Prize. He believes that he wouldn't win it until he has successfully trapped the antihydrogen in an area so that he can study the stuff.  

Unfortunately, with the last experiment called ATHENA, the plans to trap the antihydrogen failed. The problem was that the scientists used magnets to direct the antiproton and the positron around, which worked fine, but when the two combined to become antihydrogen, the antihydrogen was no longer charged. Uncharged things do not feel magnetic force, so the uncharged antihydrogen was suddenly free floating. But remember, when antimatter bumps into matter, they annihilate each other, so when the free floating antihydrogen bumped into the edge of the experiment, it disappeared into other particles made of normal matter. Annoyingly, then, the only way that the scientists could tell that they had made antimatter was when they saw these other particles in their experiment that could only have been created from the annihilation of antihydrogen. But by then, it was too late to trap the antihydrogen. ALPHA plans on solving this problem. If so, Jeffrey Hangst, the spokesperson and the head of the experiment, might win the Nobel Prize.

Not only did I get to meet Mr. Hangst and speak with him about his experiment, but Mr. Hangst also gave me a private tour of the experiment (see pictures below). No, I didn't need to go 100 meters underground to see this experiment, and no, I didn't need a hard hat, but it was certainly an amazing sight. The large room with concrete floors was filled with bizarre looking equipment, "DANGER" signs and a spacey looking glass control tower. As I spoke with Mr. Hangst, huge metal containers filled with liquid helium kept passing what felt like directly over my head...the liquid helium was being moved around with a large yellow crane attached to the top of the ceiling. Its purpose was to keep the magnets at extremely low temperatures.

During this trip to ALPHA, I also found that if the movie Angels and Demons had been shot at CERN, it would have been shot at ALPHA, not at the LHC. Apparently, Dan Brown's fictional ideas about antimatter at CERN had been inspired to some degree by the ATHENA and the ALPHA experiments. Of course, most of what Dan Brown says in his book is entirely untrue. Mr. Hangst assured me that it is virtually impossible to make large amounts of antimatter and that nobody was trying to make an antimatter bomb to blow up Rome (which is what I've been told is attempted in the book, although I admit, I have never read it). 

After leaving Jeffrey Hangst, I had finally reached my last meeting of the day and at CERN. Before I went to it, I stopped to and said good bye to Katie. I have to say it was a bitter-sweet moment. I was tired from the long week and ready to take a break, but on the other hand, I was going to miss seeing Katie every day.

Then, I went to my very last meeting at CERN. I was to eat lunch with University of Michigan undergraduate student Adam Sypniewski. He was the closest one to my age that I met during the whole process.

I ended up sitting with Adam and a group of his summer student friends in the cafeteria. It was definitely different talking to them than talking to the Physicists who had been working for CERN for long periods of time--Adam and his friends really had that sense of being outsiders looking in as well, a feeling that I could totally identify with. 

Although Adam was the last person I met at CERN, he definitely was a highlight of the week. Besides the fact that his hair was blond, he had that cool Harry Potter look...minus the scar and the quirkiness. In addition, even though he was an undergraduate student who at that point was at the bottom of the totem poll, Adam might have been one of the more brilliant people at CERN. I have no doubt that Adam will be the next "big thing" to happen to CERN. 

After lunch, Adam took me to see the offices at LHCb, the fourth experiment of the LHC and the one on which he works. There, he began to talk about his experiences growing up. For example, I found that Adam had taught HIMSELF, yes himself, computer science. I felt literally in the presence of a computer genius. He told me that one day he just decided to fiddle around with his computer and that with enough trial and error, he had learned almost everything there was to know about computers. He even gets paid some money to figure out how to hack into various computers, and then to figure out a way to safeguard those computers from the hackers! But he has never, ever taken a computer course! 

When I left Adam, I walked slowly back to the Reception Centre. I wanted to take it all in for the last time. The dank, dark hallways, the black line on the floor that lead to the cafeteria and the rooms full of scientists working hard towards the common goal of building the LHC. Then, I left the building, drove past the spacey looking building that represents CERN to me but is never actually used, the fields of wildflowers and the tiny village of Meyrin to the hotel in Geneva. My week at CERN was over.

-Carolyn

Continuation of Day 4: the ALICE Experiment

Hey World!

Now for the second part of Day 4 at CERN. In this entry, I shall describe my experience visiting the ALICE exhibit. Yep, it's time to leave the Grid Computing Centre and go back to taking on the excitement of the experiments themselves!

DAY 4: Part 2

At 3:00 pm on Day 4 at CERN I was picked up by Terry Awes of the Oak Ridge National Lab to visit the ALICE experiment, on which he is an extremely influential member. Mr. Awes, I soon discovered, was willing to explain ALICE to me for as long as necessary for me to truly understand what was going on in that experiment. Again, just a demonstration of the supreme kindness of the scientists at CERN and their desire to get the true story of the LHC out into the open. 

We drove for a little bit and spoke about ALICE in the car. ALICE is relatively far away from the CERN Reception Centre, but not as far as CMS, which is on the other side of the circular tunnel. Mr. Awes, it turns out, had only been at CERN for a short while to work on the LHC because, as he explained it, the United States had taken a while to get involved with the experiment. When I inquired about this fact, I learned that the United States had been somewhat reluctant at the beginning to get involved because it already was building a similar particle accelerator intense enough to rival the LHC in Texas. However, those plans had fallen through a while before, and suddenly, the United States had found itself no longer the Physics capital of the world. Of course, every country is reluctant to give up such reputations, so it had taken a while for the United States government to decide to help out with funding. But finally, when that decision had been made, Mr. Awes was one of the United States Physicists sent over to CERN to build part of ALICE. 

However, Mr. Awes had a completely different focus from the other Physicists that I had met up until that point. He was not a particle Physicist but instead, a Nuclear Physicist. When he told me that fact, my first reaction was to ask him if he meant nuclear as in nuclear bomb and nuclear energy...his answer was that he was involved with neither of those pursuits. Apparently, nuclear in the world of Physics just means that one studies the nucleus and the way that bigger particles that have already been discovered interact. So no, Mr. Awes is not attempting to create a new nuclear bomb and he is not trying to find a way to make nuclear energy a safe way to heat houses...he is just studying the nucleus of an atom. I do have to say before I go on that Mr. Awes is in fact one of the most peaceful people that you could ever meet. All he cared about was learning Physics and that was the end of the story. 

I think that he might have been a bit nervous at first because he really didn't know how much Physics I had taken in the past or whether I would be able to understand anything at all about the ALICE experiment. But the moment he got started talking about Physics, there was no stopping him. He literally IS a Physicist. There is just no other way to describe it. I even asked him how he had chosen to become a Physicist and he almost didn't know how to answer. I think that when you love a subject so much, there really is nothing else that you could be but a Physicist. 

So, luckily for me, I found myself again with someone who was willing to spend as much time as necessary to make sure that all my questions were answered. Poor Mr. Awes spoke with me not for just the hour that he had been allotted to me, but for an hour and 45 minutes! We talked about everything...from how to get a PhD in Physics (which is quite complicated I've discovered) to the main goals of the ALICE experiment. Of course, some stuff....actually much stuff went over my head. But the underlying concepts were definitely comprehensible, even for the average human being like myself. It is because of his time and effort that I can explain as much as I now can as you will see in the next paragraph.

The first surprise was that ALICE is not said as a typical American might say it, but instead as a french person might say it...ALEACE, with the "I" sounding like an "eeeee." Immediately, I began to give the ALICE guys more credit...after all, ALICE with a french accent is a totally groovy name. 

The next surprise about ALICE is that it has nothing to do with finding a Higgs boson. In fact, it really is an altogether different experiment from the CMS and ATLAS experiments. In fact, ALICE is not even that interested in the proton-proton collisions of the LHC (although it will still pay some attention to them)...instead, ALICE is interested in the other collisions that will be happening at the LHC, the lead ion collisions. These high energy lead ion collisions should allow the nuclear Physicists study something known as quark-gluon plasma which was only recently discovered and which is believed to have existed in large quantities just after the Big Bang. 

Okay okay, you are saying. Where did quark-gluon plasma come from? Quark-gluon plasma in fact came from the nuclear Physicists last attempt to isolate quarks from protons and neutrons, and from their bond with the gluons. Such a feat has never been accomplished, but instead, when the quarks were as separate as they could be from all these particles, quark-gluon plasma developed instead of free quarks. Why? Well, that's a good question. Nobody knows.

Alright, so why should we care? Well, if quark-gluon plasma was all that existed immediately after the Big Bang as the scientists believe, then all matter had to have come from the plasma as it expanded and cooled. So, suddenly quark-gluon plasma appears to be extremely important in understanding the way that the Universe developed. Hopefully, after the quark-gluon plasma has been created, the ALICE scientists will be able to study what happens as the plasma cools. Oh yeah, and according to CERN's website for ALICE, to create such plasma, you only have to heat up the ions to "temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than the heart of the Sun." (See http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/en/LHC/ALICE-en.html). Luckily, the high energy of the collisions should do the trick.

Unfortunately, I was not able to go down into the tunnel to see ALICE but I was able to see where the ALICE detector had been lowered into its "Cavern." So, no hard hat, but just staring down into that deep, deep hole in the ground was enough to give me the chills anyway. I mean, just picture it yourself. You are standing at the edge of a hold that goes 100 meters underground...literally the edge of it. All there is between you and long, hard fall is one iron fence. Yeah, at least it was iron, but still...the feeling of vulnerability sure does take your breath away. Oh and I forgot, the bottom of this drop that seems to go to the center of the earth is sealed over with concrete. I'm really glad that iron fence was there.

Well, that's about everything for Day 4! But keeping checking this blog for more entries about Day 5, my final day at CERN!!!

-Carolyn

Beginning of Day 4: Grid Computing

Hey World!

At this point, while I only had two meetings on the fourth day at CERN, both meetings require so much explanation that I have decided to break the description of the fourth day into two different entries. In  this entry, I shall describe my tour of the CERN Computing Centre and will discuss the benefits of Grid Computing  (read on if you have no idea what Grid Computing is). 

DAY  4: Part 1

I arrived at 10:00 am again at the CERN Reception Centre. As usual, Katie arrived shortly after to pick me up and to rush me off wherever it was that I needed to go. On this particular day, my destination happened to be the CERN Computing Centre, the place that houses the center of the humongous network of computers all participating in something known as a Grid. If all works out the way it should, this Grid Computing System, the center of which was where I stood on the morning of Day 4, should be able to successfully process and perform calculations on over 15,000 Terabytes of LHC data a year. Some of this data will be raw data but most of it will be analysis data and simulations. Just to give you an idea, according to the sheet of random facts about the Grid Computing of the LHC, 15,000 Terabytes is roughly equivalent to 3 million DVD's and if each of these DVD's contained films of 1.5 hours each, watching all the films continuously would take more than 500 years. In other words, without Grid Computing, it would be physically impossible for humans to handle all the data that will be erupting from the LHC in about year or two. 

However, upon my arrival at that CERN Computing Centre on my fourth morning, I had only a vague idea that Grid Computing even existed. When I had read articles about the LHC in the past, there was rarely mention of Grid Computing. More often than not, Grid Computing was overshadowed by all the other cool factors of the LHC...its size, its importance in the world of particle Physics, its location...all the factors which before this entry, I had focused on. Little did I know that underneath these fine details about the grandest experiment in all Physics lay perhaps the most immediately useful element of CERN. Yes, I do firmly believe that Grid Computing will be a huge thing someday, just as the invention of the World Wide Web was back in the day.

Let's be serious, folks. Finding a Higgs boson is not exactly the most useful discovery in the whole world. You can't even see the darn thing and even if it was created at the LHC, it would disintegrate immediately into other particles. Not to say that finding it is not important...it is extremely important and it would tell us tons of information about the World and Universe that we live in. But if we are looking for an application using a Higgs boson...well, we might just have to wait a few hundred years before someone figures that out.

During this whole trip, I have repeatedly asked the Physicists why they feel it is necessary to answer all these questions about the Universe. At this point, when we already know so much, what makes one person believe that he/she can understand the way that the entire Universe works together. Perhaps, we shall always be looking for smaller and smaller fundamental particles...smaller than up and down quarks and electrons! Maybe something such as a "Standard Model" that describes the entire Universe in one neat mathematical formula is completely impossible. Is there anything useful about the LHC?

Surprisingly, most of the scientists have had the same answer to these questions. Yes, they say, perhaps we will always be probing deeper and deeper and will never actually be able to know everything about the Universe, or perhaps there will be a point when humans know everything, when we have uncovered all the mysteries...but anyway look where our probing has led us so far! 100 years ago, nobody could imagine any useful application for the electron...now, modern life as we know it couldn't survive without such inventions that involve electricity (electron, electricity...see the connection?). In 1989, CERN struggled to find a way to transport large amounts of data from its last particle accelerator, LEP, from one computer to another in an easy fashion. So, to solve this problem, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web! Clearly, some of the most influential inventions have developed from the research of particle Physicists.

In other words, the real answer is...right now, there isn't really anything useful about the LHC itself. Perhaps in hundreds of years there will be an application that will use a Higgs boson. But really, the most immediately useful part of the LHC does not come from the particle Physics itself, but from inventions such as Grid Computing that come as a result of the LHC. Much in the same way as the World Wide Web changed the world, Grid Computing will do the same thing. This invention is probably the coolest thing that I have ever heard of!

So, after all this talk, what exactly is Grid Computing anyway? A Grid is essentially a network of computers. While the World Wide Web uses the internet to communicate, a Grid uses the internet to share the power from many different computers to create one supercomputer that can solve various large problems. When the LHC begins, for example, its Grid that combines the power of thousands of computers all over the world will be used to do calculations and hopefully recognize new particles. However, and here is the cool part, since the LHC has not begun running yet, its future Grid has been free to work on other world problems such as finding cures for Malaria, Cancer and AIDS as well as solving the problem of global warming and finding alternative energy sources. For example, somewhat recently, the Grid system was used to simulate various different proteins ability to halt Malaria from attacking a humans blood cells. In about six weeks, around 30 different proteins were found that could stop Malaria. Of course, now there is the issue of getting those proteins to the people in areas most affected by Malaria, and the Grid system can work on that as well. So, basically, by combining all of these thousands of computers, Grid Computing can help the world quickly whereas without such a system, it might have taken humans years to discover such solutions. 

Of course, my next feeling was to wonder why we were going to turn off all of these other wonderful applications of Grid Computing to use it on the LHC. But to my disbelief, I was told that there are many Grid Computing systems around the world...the technology has taken off in popularity (no wonder right?). In fact, turns out that there is a way to join your own personal computer to a Grid Computing system...apparently, there is a network titled BOINC, which allows a person to volunteer their own personal computer to be used in a Grid whenever the computer is not being used. So, tadah! Not only can large centers such as CERN use fancy technology to solve the worlds problems...you can too!! It really is fascinating and I suggest that if you are at all interested in volunteering for BOINC, that you check out the website. It is listed below:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

All you do is choose the project or multiple projects that you want your computer to work on during its idle time, and then run the software and thats it. It sure sounds like a great way to contribute to the world. I must say that I am myself considering joining this amazing program.

And, for me, the coolest part about Grid Computing is the fact that I got to see where it in its most cutting edge state (see pictures below). Yes, folks, CERN has decided to rely on Grid technology to solve its problems with the internationality of the LHC, and because of that fact, CERN has been working hard to come up with the best and probably one of the most powerful Grid Computing systems ever made. 

So, on the fourth morning of my involvement with CERN, I met a woman named Cristy Burne who was to be my tour guide around the "computer farm" as the Physicists call the Computing Centre. Cristy Burne, it turned out, was not a Physicist as I would have expected. Instead, she was...well...like me, an interested person who had decided to write about Grid Computing. Now, she is a journalist who writes about Grid Computing for the international journal, iSGTW (International Science Grid This Week). Cristy Burne, in other words, was someone who I could totally relate to...she was a science journalist, an English/History/Writing minded person who had developed this interest in science and had thus, decided to write about it. Actually, now looking back upon this meeting with Christy, it totally makes sense to me that she was a non-Physicist writer. An Australian complete with a buret on her head, Christie had a certain artistic flair about her. But the most shocking part of this conversation was learning that it was actually Katie who had founded the magazine, iSGTW. As you can probably tell, my awe of Katie only continued to grow throughout the entire experience.

Then, all of a sudden, Katie disappeared and I was whisked off into a massive room filled with the most computer hard drives that I have ever seen in my life. The whole room really looked like those crazy IBM commercials...come on, you know the ones...the ones where there is a big case of shelves filled with black computer hard drives and a guy standing next to it saying "see, there is an easier way to organize business computers." Except in the IBM commercials, there is only one case of shelves generally in the middle of an empty room...in the CERN Computing Centre, there were rows and rows of these crazy cases of shelves. Some were enclosed in little glass huts so that air conditioning could keep the computers cool without leaving the enclosed area. Others were left out in the open. In addition, as one looked beyond across the sea of hard drives, there was a wallpaper on the other edge of the room of flat-screened computer screens. The entire scene was somewhat overwhelming to witness. 

Yet, this opening room was not the only room in that center filled with computer hard drives or other technology. When Cristy and I walked downstairs, I discovered that there were plenty of other rooms with just as many hard drives as well, and some with robots in them. Yes, I said it, ROBOTS!!! Of course, they weren't like the robots that one might see in movies, but instead little miniature machines that sped about tiny compartments moving tapes around this way and that in an effort to organize. Only at CERN could you find something like that!

Finally, when we reached the end of the tour, I was shown, I think, what came to be one of my absolute favorite points of the week...the computer on which the World Wide Web had been created!

Well, that's about it for this entry! Stay tuned for further entries on my trip to the LHC!

-Carolyn

Day 3: John Ellis, the CERN Control Centre and the SM18 Magnet Facility

Hey World!

In this entry, I will continue by describing Day 3 at CERN.

DAY 3:

I arrived at the CERN Reception area at 8:50 am and waited to meet Katie. When she came, she was obviously in a hurry, so I jumped up and sped along behind her. All I knew at that point was that I was going to meet John Ellis, a CERN theoretical physicist. Oh yeah, and I knew that he was one of the masterminds of modern particle Physics. He is, after all, mentioned in some shape or form in most of the articles that I had read about CERN and the LHC before I arrived on the actual scene. So I did know that the fact that I was going to meet John Ellis within the next few minutes was a pretty big deal. 

But John Ellis is so much more than a pretty big deal. It took one look at him and his office to know that he was the real deal, a modern version of Einstein. White hair, not grey but literally white hair covers his head and face, so much so that the only part of his face that can be easily seen are his eyes. Yet, somehow because of all this whiteness covering his face, his eyes seem to stand out more brilliantly. They are bright, bright blue and totally wise-looking. I must say that I am never a person to notice anything about a person's eyes, but with John Ellis, you cannot avoid staring at them. For all you Lord of the Rings lovers, I bet if he wanted to he could pull off the Gandalf look...you know, when Gandalf becomes Gandalf the White instead of Gandalf the Grey. He is just that powerful looking. You can literally see the genius there in the way that he looks.

Yet, he was also tentative and extremely kind to me. He was not willing to offer up any information, but instead waited for me to ask the questions. If I happened to ask the right question to uncover some important detail of his life, he was willing to tell me about it. Essentially, then, it was up to me to figure out the right questions to ask...it was like figuring out the pieces to a puzzle. 

And that room!!! Oh my, I must say I have never seen anything quite like that room that he works in! White towers of paper covered the desk and the floor. The towers were so high in fact that when Mr. Ellis sat behind his desk and I sat on the other side, I could barely see the top half of his head. In addition, the two chalkboards were filled with math. The math, of course, was not math that one would generally see on a chalkboard at school, it was math the like of which I had never laid eyes on before. It was extremely complicated math, probably cutting edge math. Also, the entire room smelled full of papers, chalk and aged wood. All I can say is that the entire room really had that feel of housing someone too important for it to be tidy. I loved that feel...it was purely awesome to be in its presence and in John Ellis' presence.

As I said before, with John Ellis, one really has to ask the right questions to get information. The first thing he did upon walking into the room was sit down and wait expectantly for me to begin questioning him. I have since realized that this meeting with John Ellis really was an interview...my first legit interview that I have conducted ever. But despite my rookie status, I believe that I found much interesting information about Mr. Ellis. Below is some of what he said.

John Ellis has been working at CERN for 35 years. He was involved with the LEP experiment before the LHC was being built. Surprisingly, LEP was another less powerful particle accelerator that used the same tunnel that the LHC uses now. The scientists took LEP apart so that they could build the LHC. But what does Mr. Ellis do exactly? He told me that as a theoretical physicists he writes papers about his new ideas, develops equations and comes up with math specifying what the LHC should be looking for. For example, one of the chalkboards filled with math was his work towards developing an equation for a relationship between matter and antimatter. It looked pretty complicated I must say. He is also extremely fascinated with discovering why matter dominates antimatter and explaining dark matter. In addition to all this, he specifically wanted to make the point that the public's fear of the LHC's potential ability to create mini-black holes is completely overblown. The mini-black holes, if created would be more like "grey holes"...they would disintegrate immediately into other particles. He said that he is often frustrated when people say that they fear the LHC experiment, but then don't bother to research further into the issue.

Then I asked how he decided to be a Physicist. After giving me a look that implied that he hadn't really thought of that period in his life for quite some time, he answered the most astonishing answer. Apparently, when he was 12 years old he read books at the local library all the time. However, unlike a typical 12 year old reader, he was bored with the fictional books, and decided to try nonfiction for a while. Soon, he was reading the most famous books about Physics and space. Now, while I read a ton from an early age, I don't think that I could have gotten through a cutting edge Physics book at age 12. Just goes to show you that some people really are born for this type of thing. Then, of course, as time passed Mr. Ellis took math, chemistry and biology, but as many of the other Physicists said as well, Physics just seemed to be the most fundamental science. It seems that Mr. Ellis was driven by a desire to get to the bottom of all the deepest mysteries of the Universe.

Nevertheless, along the way John Ellis has certainly made a name for himself. During this conversation with him, I stumbled upon the fact that he had come up with the solution for finding the gluon (the particle responsible for holding quarks in a proton together). This deed is no small achievement! Scientists had been trying to prove the gluons existence for a long period of time before and had virtually given up when John Ellis predicted the correct way for discovering the particle. As he described it, in fact, he was merely walking around the cafeteria getting ready for lunch when suddenly, the idea for finding the gluon hit him! But John Ellis has been involved with so much more earth-shattering Physics that even I, who barely knows the significance of these discoveries, was astounded. For example, not only did John Ellis predict how to discover the gluon, but he also named the "squark," the supersymmetric partner of the quark that the LHC might discover. He even told me that he came up with the idea for smashing electrons and positrons together at extremely high speeds, a concept that might prove to be the fundamental idea of the next machine CERN could develop after years of working on the LHC.

As you can probably tell by the amount I have written about him, I left that hour long meeting with John Ellis completely astounded. I knew at that point that he is definitely "the man" when it comes to particle Physics. I have since found that everyone else believes that last statement as well. For the rest of the week, whenever I told one of the scientists that I had met John Ellis, his/her eyes would brim with excitement. Most of the scientists at CERN have never met him but would give an arm and a leg to do so. I am so lucky! Meeting John Ellis was definitely a memorable moment of my week. 

Anyway, back to the rest of Day 3. After attending the Introduction to Cosmology Lecture Part 2, I visited the CERN Control Centre with Katie and met with some computer scientists who work there. The centre really does look as if it was out of a fiction movie. Extremely high tech computers were everywhere with huge boards filled with buttons right next to them. Yes, folks, this room was where the actual experimentation was being controlled. It was almost overwhelming to see such gobs of technology!

Next stop was lunch. Every day after the first day, Katie had me sit with her, her husband and all of her Physics friends at lunch. It was really generous of her, and also allowed to me to catch a glimpse of the social life at CERN. I loved how Katie had a little group of friends that sit together. I also loved the European influence on the lunchtime at CERN...lunch lasted 2 hours every day!!! That was enough to get lunch, walk around and then sit down and have a cafe au lait! 

Finally, at 2:00 pm I met with Jim Kerby, an engineer from Fermilab who then toured me around the SM18 Magnet Facility (see pictures below). Now, if you are thinking magnet as in a magnet with a north and south pole that you can hold in your hand, think again. These magnets were MASSIVE and they have wires running through them which create a large magnetic field. But wait, stop, you say, since when do large magnets have to do with any of this? The answer is that these magnets are responsible for directing the protons along the 17 mile tunnel. In other words, since the protons have charge, they bend in a magnetic field. Thus, big magnets are perfect for the job of guiding protons around a tunnel.

So, who is Jim Kerby and what exactly is the SM18 Magnet Facility? Jim Kerby is one of the main engineers who is in charge of building these hugely powerful magnets. Before the magnets are allowed to be used underground, they are tested at the SM18 Magnet Facility to make sure that they are working properly. The coolest part of all this literally? The magnets have to be supercooled down to 4 degrees Kelvin with liquid helium during testing. If you didn't know, 4 degrees Kelvin is equivalent to -269 degrees Celcius. When the actual experiment begins, the magnets will be cooled to an even lower temperature of 2 degrees Kelvin (-271 degrees Celcius).

Finally, like every other day, I arrived back at the CERN Reception Centre to meet my mom. And, there ends Day 3 of my journey to Switzerland.

Keep checking for more descriptions of my trip!!

-Carolyn

Day 2: Katie, Seth Zenz and the ATLAS Experiment

Hey World!

Now that you have seen some of my pictures from my trip to Geneva, Switzerland and to CERN itself, I will continue to describe my days at the LHC.

DAY 2:

I arrived at the CERN Reception area at 10:00 am. The first order of events was to sit down with Katie and chat with her about the upcoming week. I discovered while enjoying a tea at the cafeteria with her, that Katie had only a vague idea of what I was doing at CERN. Then, of course, I remembered. I had only e-mailed her telling her that I was interested, and after several brief communications, the entire trip had been planned. Yes, of course, Katie knew that I had been a finalist for an award at school and had eventually been sponsored to travel to CERN, and she knew that I had taken one year of Physics at Andover, but as to why I had chosen the LHC as a project to study or what else I was interested in...she had no idea. So, during this morning chat, Katie and I exchanged our personal histories and learned about how both of us had found our way to that small tea table in that cafeteria. I include this description merely because it demonstrates how much the people at CERN wish to spread knowledge about the LHC. Amazingly enough, even though I was virtually a stranger to Katie, she was willing to take significant chunks of time out of her busy schedule to teach an interested student about the LHC. In fact, everyone I spoke to at CERN had that same attitude. They were excited about teaching someone who was willing to listen, and even more excited about the prospect of my attempting to increase interest and awareness about the LHC at home and at Andover.

This conversation with Katie allowed me to probe into her personal story. Throughout the week as I spoke to the various scientists my favorite question to ask was the following: how did you decide to become a Physicist? The answers I received in response were varied...from "I didn't decide, I just WAS a Physicist" to "Oh, I was actually in the process of majoring in politics when I took a Physics class in college and suddenly decided to change my major." Katie's response to this question was that in college she had majored in...ready?...both Physics and dance! Just goes to show you that Physicists actually are real people who are interested in more things than solely Physics...much to my surprise. I think that somewhere in my head I had developed the notion that I was going to a place where mad scientists dwelled. Instead, I discovered a group of ordinary, yet at the same time, interesting people. It was never until I began to ask these Physicists about their job at CERN, or about the details of the LHC that they spoke in a language that was difficult for the average human to understand.

Seth Zenz, the graduate student with whom I sat at lunch on Day 2, was exactly one of these people. Seth seemed initially to be just a really great, personable guy. Yet, when asked about anything relating to Physics his entire face would light up with excitement. He is, after all, attempting to get his PhD in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley. 

I soon found out that Seth was willing to explain Physics to me for as long as necessary until I understood at least the underlying concepts of the LHC. Capitalizing off this realization, I grilled poor Seth with so many questions that I'm sure his lunch grew cold while he answered them. In fact, although he works on the ATLAS experiment, Seth is one of those rare people at CERN who has undertaken the pains of learning about the other experiments at the LHC as well, and figuring out how all these tests will work together to produce science. I could not have asked a better person to help me figure out the world of particle Physics.

It was from Seth, then, that I learned about the trouble the scientists were having explaining why photons have no mass and W and Z bosons have such large masses. It was also from him that I learned about quarks, and that in fact, the only three fundamental particles in the world are up quarks, down quarks and electrons. Apparently, neutrons and protons, which I had formerly believed to be fundamental upon my arrival at CERN, are actually made of up quarks and down quarks held together by strange particles known as gluons. So when the protons smash together in the LHC, it is not that the protons are really colliding, but that the quarks inside the protons are colliding. Finally and most remarkably, I found that aside from finding a Higgs boson, the particle predicted to create a Higgs field which in turn has been predicted to give particles mass, the LHC is also looking to answer questions about strange ideas such as dark matter, supersymmetry and antimatter.

But wait, you say, what exactly are you talking about? I guarantee that before this trip to CERN, I too had never heard of such things as dark matter, supersymmetry and antimatter. Thus, I feel I must take a break from this day summary to explain these bizarre concepts to you. I also must say before I begin these explanations that it took me the entire week, meetings with many different scientists and my own research to finally master these concepts enough to explain them to you simply. In other words, if you understand my following descriptions, which I expect that you will...absolutely go to your friends and family and brag about your brilliance in particle Physics, and then state your opinions (whether they be fake or real) on whether or not dark matter really is responsible for making galaxies spin faster than scientists predict mathematically, or whether finding why antimatter no longer exists in our Universe could lead us to some fascinating conclusions. Believe me, I tried such a tactic and my friends and family all wondered who had corrupted my mind. It was fabulous!

Anyway, I have lost track of myself. Now for a description of the three theories, dark matter and energy, supersymmetry and antimatter:

Dark matter and energy: According to LHC the guide, a booklet given to me by Katie to brief me on the LHC, scientific observations have led humans to believe that "all of the visible matter accounts for only 4% of the Universe." This unearthing fact leads us to the question--so what other forms of matter exist in the Universe? The answer is that there may be dark matter, which takes up about 23% of the Universe, and dark energy, which takes up about 73% of the Universe. According to theoretical Physics, dark matter could be responsible for making galaxies spin as faster than predicted by scientists, and dark energy may be involved in accelerating the expansion of the Universe. Both dark matter and dark energy have been confirmed to exist, and yet nobody knows what particles are responsible for them. Many theories do exist however, and the LHC hopes to tackle the mystery.

Supersymmetry: The theory of supersymmetry could lead us to the particles responsible for dark matter and dark energy. The idea of supersymmetry is that every small particle is accompanied by a much more massive super-partner particle. For example, all bosons would have corresponding  fermions, and more specifically, a quark would have a super massive partner particle known as the squark. According to LHC the guide, "if supersymmetry is right, then the lightest supersymmetric particles should be found at the LHC." Supersymmetry has not been confirmed to exist yet. 

Antimatter: Antimatter is the oldest theory of these three. It states that every particle has another particle that is exactly the same in every way except that it is oppositely charged. So, for example, a quark has an antiquark and an electron has a positron. When antimatter collides with matter, the two annihilate each other. Theoretically, at the beginning of the Universe, there were equal amounts of antimatter and matter. But, here is the catch...somehow, today only matter naturally exists, and antimatter has disappeared  (although it can be created). This fact is great for us humans because if matter and antimatter still coexisted in equal amounts, they would annihilate each other and life would never have been able to exist. But the truly daunting question remains: what happened to the antimatter? The LHC and two other CERN projects known as ALPHA and ATRAP hope to find the answer to this question.

How does all this relate back to my conversation at the cafeteria table with Seth? He first introduced these huge concepts to me of course. Although, I must say, I am not sure that I understood them all completely in the same way that I do now. In any case, through this lunchw with Seth, I had finally discovered that the LHC hopes to find the answers to many questions instead of just one question.

After my meeting with Seth, I went to meet Frank Taylor of MIT, who showed me around the ATLAS experiment (see pictures in the entry posted below). Again, I found myself traveling 90-100 meters underground into the so-called "Cavern" where the ATLAS detector is kept.

I must not have been able to keep the shock off my face when I saw the ATLAS detector for the first time. Yeah, I thought that the CMS detector was big when I saw it...but at that point, I had never seen ATLAS. The ATLAS detector is, in fact, the biggest of the four main detectors of the LHC, and boy could one tell! I think my mouth actually fell open at its size. And, just to throw in some cool facts about this part of the LHC, according to the website entitled The Atlas Experiment (see http://atlas.ch/what_is_atlas.html#4), "ATLAS is about 45 meter long, more than 25 meters high, and weighs about 7,000 tons. It is about half as big as the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and weighs the same as the Eiffel Tower or 100747 empty jets." I personally find such facts amusing...it seems the smaller the particles that Physicists are trying to measure, the bigger the machines that they must build.

The ATLAS detector basically does the same thing as the CMS detector--just while using a different style. However, both are looking for evidence of new, never-before-seen particles...and particularly for the Higgs boson. The benefit of having two detectors looking for the same material is that the data from one detector can be used to verify the data of another. Scientists do not like to rely on just one source, but instead on proofs that have themselves been proven to be true. On the down side, however, building two gargantuan detectors that work differently means spending much more money just to verify data. But hey, spending money is nothing compared to being able to prove that the Higgs boson really does exist.

So, that's it folks for a summary of Day 2 at CERN. Keep reading as I will continue to update this blog with descriptions of my third, fourth and fifth days visiting the LHC.

-Carolyn

PICTURES

Hey World!

Before I went any further with my descriptions of my trip, I wanted to post the pictures that I have taken of this trip. In later entries, I will continue to describe my experiences. Enjoy!

Above is a pictures of me with my hard hat visiting the ATLAS machine 90 meters underground. None of the pictures of the machines seem to do them justice unfortunately. Walking into the "cavern" that holds the machine, one gets the feeling that he/she is seeing the Grand Canyon of Physics.
The above picture is to give you an idea of the small country feel of the town of Meyrin. This picture is of the Meyrin Chapel.
The picture above is of the Meyrin town center. Beautiful, but TINY!

The above picture is of me standing on the edge of Lake Geneva with its famous water spout in the background. As you can see, the Swiss Alps are located directly behind Lake Geneva.
Yes, the above picture is of a Danger Sign, and yes, I was right there. Just kidding! The Danger Sign was pointing towards a different room that I did not visit.
The above picture is of the view one sees as he/she drives up the road towards CERN. The yellow sea in front of the building is the field of sunflowers that I described before, and behind the building are the French Alps. Also, I love the building itself because it seems so futuristic and "spacy."
The above picture of me with the cool CERN building. Strangely, this building is not really used by CERN for science at all, more for a place to have exhibits every once in a while.
Above is the tiny street in Meyrin, Switzerland. Clearly, two cars cannot both fit on this street. That is how small Meyrin Village is!
Above is a picture of me in the bustling town center of Meyrin. I personally think it very strange that next to such a rural town is such a huge, unbelievably modern Physics experiment. Talk about contrast!
The above picture was taken at the ALPHA experiment center, which you will read more about later. The ALPHA experiment actually has nothing to do with the LHC, but instead attempts to figure out why antimatter virtually disappeared at the beginning of the Universe. When I took this picture I was calmly talking to Jeffrey Hangst, the leader of the ALPHA experiment, when this huge container of liquid helium flew over my head on a crane!
The above picture is another of the ALPHA experiment. It is unbelievable to me how complicated the entire experiment looks.
Above is more of the ALPHA experiment.
Above is a picture of the ALPHA experiment. The white on the pipes is actually snow created from the low temperatures of liquid helium inside the tubes.
Again, the above picture is of the ALPHA experiment. I shall explain this experiment in detail later.
The above picture is of a swan on Lake Geneva. I don't know if the swans were put there on purpose or if swans are just native to Switzerland....which I doubt....but they are all over the Lake.
Above is a picture of the sailboats on Lake Geneva.
The people of Geneva are beginning to generate excitement about Les Fetes de Geneve...the parties of Geneva...that will begin in August. The above picture is of the Ferris Wheel which has been recently planted on the side of the lake for the pre-party festival. Even though Geneva is still in pre-party mode, there is live music every night at the location of the upcoming festival.
Rolex....that is all I can say. Geneva, in the past, was the watch capital of the world. Clearly, that tradition has not yet ended. Watch stores are all over the place.
The above picture is just one of myself beside the lake.
Above is another picture of the lake and the city of Geneva.
The above picture is of the famous water shoot/spout/thing (I don't know what to call it).
Me beside the water spout.
More Geneva with the mountains in the background....beautiful....sigh.
I took the above picture just because I thought it was hilarious. When I was walking by this swan, it had its tail in the air and it was kicking frantically as if it was attempting to dive deeper into the water but couldn't manage to swim further down into the water than where it was. It kept coming back up for air and then trying to dive again. So I took a picture.
The above picture is of the Reception Centre at CERN. As you can see, it is much more bland looking than the big space station-like building. However, it serves its purpose quite nicely.
Me at the Reception Centre where I waited for Katie to pick me up every morning. There is also a nice museum describing the LHC inside the center. If you ever visit CERN, make sure that you check out that museum.
The above picture really portrays everything that I described earlier. The Alps in the background, the sunflowers just in front of the camera and the massive exhibition center somewhere in between. The white building to the right of this center is the ATLAS experiment. 
Above is another picture of the fantastic countryside that surrounds CERN. 
This way to Meyrin...what more can I say?
More sunflowers....apparently, throughout the day, the sunflowers turn their heads so that they are always facing the sun. That is why in this picture, the heads of all the sunflowers are turned away from the camera.
More of the space station exhibition center.
The above picture is of the building that houses the ATLAS experiment.
More sunflowers. The sunflower was always present during my visit to CERN and thus, in a way, symbolizes my experience there.
Again, sunflowers. I didn't realize until now how many sunflower pictures I took.
The above picture is of the hole where the scientists lowered the ALICE detector into the ground. I could not see the ALICE detector because it was already closed off to visitors, but you can see through this hole just how deep underground ALICE is located.
Me, at CERN.
The sign for CERN. This sign is made out of a spare magnet! How cool is that?! It is also written in french, because everything is french in Geneva. Luckily, I am going into the highest french course offered at Andover, French 600, and just took the AP course last year.
More sunflowers!! 
The above picture is of the rows and rows of computers in the grid computer control room. The scientists have labeled this area the "farm" of computers. The vents on the floor are for air conditioning, which is always on high in order to keep the computers cool and in peak operating condition. Of course, it is rather cold in there. I shall speak more of the grid computer system in my later entries.
Me, with all of the computers. 
More grid computers....these computers were first created 5 years ago, but now they seem ancient compared to the new computers of today. But at least, they can still be used in the grid system.
It is hard to see through the screen, but inside the above chamber are stacks upon stacks of tapes as well as a robot which is continually moving everything around to keep it organized. Yeah, that's right, a ROBOT!
The above picture is of a tank of liquid helium which cools the massive magnets of the LHC down to a little below 2 K, or -271 degrees Celsius.
The above picture is of the trigger system at the ATLAS experiment. While the LHC is running, too much data will be produced for the scientists to handle. In fact, enough data will be produced that if it were stored on CD's, the pile of CD's that would result would be able to reach the moon. Thus, the computers above recognize what data is interesting, and what isn't and then only allows the interesting data to reach the scientists. 
The above picture is of the computer control room. This computer system controls PS, a different, much older particle accelerator that will be used to give initial energy to the protons before they enter the LHC>
The above picture is of the inside of the building that built and tested all the magnets before they went down into the LHC tunnel. The magnets are responsible for directing the protons around the tunnel, because the large magnetic field that they create force the protons to bend.
The above picture is of a map of the world...the parts filled in yellow are all the home countries of the Physicists of the ATLAS experiment.
The above photograph is of the ATLAS detector. Again, it is much more looming and breathtaking in real life, but I tried my best to do it justice. When I was taking this picture, I was 90 meters underground.
Above is another photograph of the ATLAS detector.
The above photograph is of the control room at the ATLAS building. The diagrams on the screen at the front of the room are large diagrams of the ATLAS detector.
Above is another view of the ATLAS computer control room.
Finally, on the above screen is an update of each of the parts of the ATLAS detector. This picture was taken to show just how complicated planning even one of the four experiments of the LHC really is.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

-Carolyn