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Author Topic: CERN  (Read 5118 times)

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2009, 06:47:04 PM »
We knew we were getting close to CERN because of the strange glow coming from the ground...the building is the above ground centre for the CMS experiment that we toured 100m underground.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2009, 06:51:23 PM »
This photo shows the 27km ring as it goes through the countryside.  Most of it is on the French side of the border mainly due to expropriation laws that make it near impossible to expropriate land in Switzerland (which is why there are so many tunnels in Switzerland in case anyone wondered - highways are cheaper to build underground than through parcels of private land).  In France they just sign a paper and bingo!  the land is now the governments.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2009, 07:01:53 PM »
The now empty control room (actually only about a third of it) of CMS, only one of four major experiments on the ring itself.  Once they turn it on, the room will be packed with physicists probably with standing room as well.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2009, 07:03:07 PM »
This monitor is showing the CMS status screen.  While we were there, there were probably 30-40 technicians making last minute maintenance and adjustments.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #19 on: October 20, 2009, 07:10:53 PM »
This screen shows 5 control rooms around the world that are on 24hr video conference.  At first I thought that this was a huge waste of satellite time, but they pointed out that I shouldn't forget that CERN was the birthplace of the internet, and as such they have probably some of the biggest broadband pipes in the world going into it, and those crisp videos don't take up much of the capacity (I thought about asking them to see if they could stream F1 on race days, but thought better of it).

The dork in the orange shirt would be me taking a picture of the screen.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #20 on: October 20, 2009, 07:13:59 PM »
Above ground security gate (card access) before the elevator.

The guy in the hard hat would be me about to be science-fied
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #21 on: October 20, 2009, 07:33:37 PM »
This is some of the detector cabling.  They are not computer racks, but detector processor systems (the computers are above ground).  There are 6 rows of these over two separate floors.  In the info centre, they showed us a stack of CD's which was to show how much data is collected each second by the detectors.  The stack (without cases) was about 6m high.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #22 on: October 20, 2009, 07:34:39 PM »
Here are the underfloor cable runs as we went down the stairs.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #23 on: October 20, 2009, 07:38:41 PM »
The first door says it all.

The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #24 on: October 20, 2009, 07:39:12 PM »
The second shot is of a retina scan gate.  If this gate is breached while the LHC is turned on, the whole thing shuts down and it takes over 3 weeks to cool everything down again before they can turn it on.  This was one of the reasons we were unable to go into the accelorator tunnel itself...they had already stared pumping helium into the accelerator magnets to cool them down in preparation for November's startup.

There was also some sort of magnetic field when we went through the door.  We were told not to have any loose change in our pockets...but it didn't affect my camera.  I think the loose change rule is to prevent jokers from dropping coins through the metal grate floors into the guts of the place and causing havoc.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2009, 07:41:18 PM by ScottyD »
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #25 on: October 20, 2009, 07:43:14 PM »
We are now in the CMS cavern.  This shot is looking up at a massive hole in the ceiling, which goes up 100m and is how they dropped down each of the seven sections of the CMS.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #26 on: October 20, 2009, 07:51:00 PM »
This is from one end of the CMS detector itself.  It is 15m high, 45m long and weighs something ridiculous like 27000 metric tons (I've forgotten exactly, but you can check the website yourself if you like).  The lower half of the detector is pretty much the same, but was obstructed by a ton of equipment.  The detector is exactly symetrical, so it looks the same from both ends.  The protons enter it from both sides at the same speed.  

Throughout the tunnels, there are two beams of protons going through the accelerators.  At each of the 4 points where the experiments are, they are forked together using massive magnets.  The accelerators will be populated by millions of protons at the same time running in opposite directions, but they expect that only a tiny fraction of them will actually collide.  The entire LHC will be filled with protons over a short period and then they will just run continuously for about 7-8 hrs at a time until the beams diminish.  Then it is filled up again and it starts all over.

You can see part of the beam fork shrowded in orange steel on the lower right hand side.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #27 on: October 20, 2009, 07:55:46 PM »
These were our hosts.  The one in the centre with the white hard hat is the tour guide, who is a retired physicist who was actually responsible for the project that grew most of the crystals inside the CMS detector.  He had an example to show us, and it weighted 3 times what I thought it would when I picked it up.  The tall one on the right is the one who organized the tour for me - he is a theoretical physicist who works on another experiment called Atlas, which is no longer available for tours.  The woman on the right is the wife of another physicist who had never been down in one of the caverns before, and thought she had better before it was too late (once it is turned on in November, that's it - no more tours).
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #28 on: October 20, 2009, 07:57:52 PM »
This is the beam fork, which begins the process of bringing the beams together so that they collide inside the CMS.  It was amazing to realize that all this massive machinery was to carry two small beams thinner than a pen refill.  The green cylinders are some sort of magnetic system which bends the beams together.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

Offline Scott

Re: CERN
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2009, 08:02:16 PM »
These massive steel orange doors swing shut to shrowd the beam fork (keep in mind that this is not the technical word for it).  They are all part of the system to control the magnetic fields that are involved in bending the beams.
The Honey Badger doesn't give a...

 


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