Twenty Seven Upper Sixth Physics students recently visited CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) situated just outside Geneva. CERN straddles the French-Swiss border and is the world’s premiere facility for particle physics. Established in 1954, home to some 5000 scientists, and birth place of the World Wide Web, CERN aims to probe deep into the heart of matter to find out what it is made of and how it works.
This was an exciting time to visit CERN as the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is about to come online, and was the final opportunity to see the LHC detectors before they are sealed. This particle accelerator will allow scientists at CERN to probe even deeper by recreating conditions not seen since the ‘Big Bang’, and will bring physicists even closer to understanding gravity and the structure of the universe.
The History of Science Museum, the International Red Cross and United Nations were also visited, and tired limbs were refreshed by a welcome sit down on the world’s longest bench! The inaugural overseas Physics field trip was a hugely enjoyable experience, if not indeed inspirational.