I have now had two sessions at CERN, the laboratory that houses the LHC experiment. Below is an overview of my time spent in the world of particle physics...I will explain some of what I have learned, and in later blog entries, will explain what I have been doing on site at CERN. This portion of the blog may seem a bit like a repetition of facts that one could find anywhere about the LHC and CERN, but I feel that it is necessary to give a summary of what is going on here before I begin to describe my experiences (which I will do in later entries). For now, enjoy my summary of CERN and the LHC:
1) First of all, it is extremely important to mention that while I must say, my knowledge was extremely limited at the beginning of this trip....it has grown significantly over the past two days. I have been treated not as a high school student, but as a major science journalist from a renowned newspaper or science journal. I have received a packet as thick and as heavy as a brick and it contains enough information to write a few novels about this experiment. I have received passes to allow me behind the scenes to talk to the real live scientists for several hours on end. I have had to....yes, folks....wear a hard hat.....coolest thing ever, really, you should all try it. And finally, yes, I have gotten to see the actual experiment itself, from its control rooms filled with computers down to the massive detectors that will be sorting through hundreds of thousands of data every second starting this October. In other words, you can trust my word about this experience....it is "legit," I have been there, I have seen it all for myself and I have met many of the scientists responsible for various portions of the project.
2) Now, before we delve into any other details, it is necessary to give a brief overview of the history of CERN, which is the name of the science center that I have spent these past two days walking about. CERN was first proposed just after World War II in 1949. The reason behind the ultimate decision to create CERN in the early 1950's was because Europe was losing many of its most prominent scientists to the United States. This problem was due to the fact that the atomic bomb had recently been developed for the first time in the United States. Thus, the European countries had to give their scientists a good reason to remain in Europe, so they united to create CERN...which stands for "Conseil europeen pour la Recherche nucleaire" (this is the exact name as it is printed in the packet I received...and yes, there are no capitals in that name). Since then, this name has been changed to be "The European Organization for Nuclear Research," but the label CERN has remained the same.
Aside from the LHC, there are many other strange things to know about CERN. For example, the World Wide Web was created here...who knew? In fact, strangely enough, many other groundbreaking experiments have taken place at CERN before the LHC....these include the Syncho-Cyclotron, which first observed the decay of a pion into an electron and a neutrino, and the Proton Synchrotron (PS)...and don't worry, you won't need to know what a pion is to understand this entry, but feel free to look it up on your own. Actually, if you're in the mood to look up strange things....scientists at CERN also discovered the W and Z particles....which are hugely important parts of particle Physics. Anyway, in addition, some of the most famous scientists EVER helped the initial developments of the CERN laboratories. These scientists include Nobel prize-winner Louis de Broglie, Nobel prize-winner Isidore Rabi and Nobel prize-winner, Niels Bohr. So basically, CERN was a pretty important distinguished place in Physics even before the LHC came onto the scene. But it was when the LHC began to be built that CERN really took off as the best place to be for a particle Physicist. Oh yeah, and if all you've ever heard about CERN is from Dan Brown's book, Angels and Demons....ignore his fictional depiction of CERN and make sure you read the above paragraph....although apparently, some of the movie that is coming out soon will contain some actual shots of CERN. But no, there are no movie theaters on the site, and no, CERN is not a center devoted to making an antimatter bomb designed to blow up the entire Vatican city. It is just a research center full of the most peaceful of scientists.
3) So, we know about where the LHC is located.....but what exactly is the LHC? The LHC stands for the "Large Hadron Collider." In a nutshell, it is the biggest, most intensive particle accelerator that has ever been built. And what is its goal? Its goal is to crash protons together at energies so close to the speed of light that scientists say the conditions of such a collision are similar to what they would have been if two protons had collided immediately after the "Big Bang." Scary, huh? But even more interesting is what follows the collision. After the collision, a shower of different particles erupt from the smashed protons. These include protons, neutrons, pions, kaons, muons...and many more. These initial particles decay into other particles. However, while the aforementioned particles would be expected from such a collision or "event" as the scientists call it, Physicists believe that there are some particles that humans have never seen that could result from the LHC experiment as well.
So, here is where things get interesting. For about 20 years, particle Physics has not made any new discoveries but has instead been focused on proving that "The Standard Model" for the small particle world is correct. "The Standard Model" is essentially a diagram with mathematical equations included explaining how everything in the Universe is made and fits together. Time and time again, major experiments have been carried out in an attempt to validate "The Standard Model" and time and time again the experiments have been successful. For once, we have reached a point where Physicists can actually say that they have a relatively comprehensible way of understanding the make-up of all matter. However, while for years Physicists have been proving "The Standard Model" correct....there are undeniably some gaps in such a model. One example is in the list of bosons, a subcategory of particles. In this subcategory of bosons, there exists the W and Z particles and the photon. However, mathematically...apparently....the fact that W and Z particles have extremely large masses, and the fact that the photon has no mass at all does not make sense with the way that all of these particles interact with each other. Therefore, hypothetically according to theoretical Physics, there might possibly be some other particle involved that gives the W and Z particles such large masses...or on a larger scale....that gives all particles mass. This unknown particle, although never before seen, has already been named the Higgs particle.....and it is the possibility of seeing a Higgs particle that keeps many of these scientists working on the LHC for years at a time. In addition, scientists are interested in the possibility of finding other things that might fit into "The Standard Model" as well, such as supersymmetric particles, mini black holes, gravitons and new states of very hot and dense matter.
4) So in a nutshell....why does the LHC exist and why am I here finding out about the experiment? The LHC hopes to discover, according to the packet I received from the CERN lab itself, the following:
"Why the world is the way it is
Why some particles weigh more than others
What constitutes the dark matter in the Universe
If there are more dimensions of space
The properties of hot, dense matter that existed in the early Universe
If we can make further progress towards a unified theory that can explain ALL physical phenomena"
Alright, so I hoped you enjoyed this portion of the blog. After this, I shall go into describing my actual experiences, the atmosphere at CERN and the LHC itself. But first, it was necessary to make sure that my readers understood what exactly was going on here.
Talk to you all tomorrow,
-Carolyn
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