eLearning Collaborative

After a short jump from Rochester to Philadelphia, an interesting adventure around the Phili
airport, and the long flight from there to Zurich. We were FINALLY in Europe!
We arrived at about 8 AM this morning for Swiss time, and about 2 in the morning
for Rochester (just for future reference, we are 6 hours ahead of you), so we
were pretty tired, and this wasn't helped by the fact that none of us really
got a very good nights sleep.

When we got to the Zurich airport, we waited
in the front for our colleagues that we planned on traveling to Geneva with by train. This group is the group
from Utah,
and are even more ahead of time than we are (I think they are 8 or 9 hours
ahead!!). They were all really nice, and we boarded the train and all slept for
most of the 3 hour ride, which occasionally gave us a view of the nearby mountains,
and villages if we were awake.

Now comes time for the actual goal of the trip! As soon as we got there we
had to check into the CERN hostel, and quickly settle into our rooms before we
had to make a meeting in which we would talk about the trip we would soon make
to CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid), which is one of the major projects in this
ordeal along with ATLAS, which will do a similar job, just in a different way
(we will tell you more about this project when we actually get to visit). After
the meeting, we boarded the bus and headed towards the Swiss-France border on
which the other side lies the huge cavern holding the CMS experiment. When we
got there we were given a quick overview on the construction and uses of the
CMS, then we were given our hard hats, which were featured in several group
photos, and then finally the beginning of the tour.

We learned many things on the trip, mainly involving the machines uses, and
how it was made.

Firstly, I will attempt to explain to you what its uses can be and what
secrets it may reveal in the near future. The only use I really grasp at this
moment is the Higgs Boson. A question that has baffled physicists for years is
"what is mass?" and "why do some things have it and some things don’t?"
The Higgs Boson is an attempt to answer these questions, and if it does exist,
CMS should bring us closer to the answer, if not actually detect it. What the
Higgs is, is basically a VERY massive particle that cannot exist long enough
for us to see it unless it is influenced by a very high energy source (in this
case it is two protons colliding head on with a combined speed of almost 2x the
speed of light). If we find that this particle in fact does exist, it will
bring us another step closer to unifying all of physics into one idea! Our
group is doing several interviews with CERN scientists tomorrow. My group has
multiple questions to ask them on this subject, and also will ask them any
questions you have for them that we cannot answer. So feel free to ask any
questions that you may have!

Now, I will give you a quick run-through of how the CMS was made. It was basically
a collaborative effort among an obscene amount of Universities from about 35
different countries around the world. Each University had its own part of the
solenoid that they had to construct and send in for the final construction of
it. Each section had to be lowered into the cavern through an immense hole in
the ground, with a corresponding pair of immense cranes. Once in the holding
facility, they hooked it up to the power, and then they lined up each section
and slid them together like a giant puzzle. Now the construction is pretty much
over, and now they just need to slide a few more sections together before they
are done. Right now I'm having trouble adding pictures to the blog, but I'll
try later. It's 10:50 here and we have been awake for a LONG time, so I need to
sleep!

References