In November members of our UK Chapter undertook the first ever 'international' regional tour, for a memorable excursion to the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire near Geneva, Switzerland. Established in 1952, and otherwise known as CERN, this vast operation has been a centre of world class fundamental physics research and is now currently home to 12,500 scientists conducting complex research into the very tiniest sub-atomic particles using the world's largest machine - The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – with a 27km tunnel circumference.
ur multi-disciplinary group of travelling engineers, ably led by Elizabeth Harrison and Nerissa Webb (UK Chapter Co-Chairs), visited the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment; one of two large general-purpose particle physics detectors built on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). When operational, two high energy proton beams are accelerated by thousands of super-conducting magnets in two ultra-high vacuum tubes that have been tunnelled 100m below the Swiss / French border. After billions of revolutions and two and half hours, the near-light speed particles are smashed together at the CMS detector station. At 21m long, 15m in diameter and 14,000 tonnes, this magnificent machine is anything but compact and must surely represent the pinnacle of scientific research in the world today. The resulting explosion of particles reveals petabytes (1PB = 1,000,000 GB) of data which has already helped confirm the existence of the Higgs Boson and may one day shed light on theories that suggest dark matter constitutes 85% of everything in the universe.
We were also lucky to be guided by one of the Professors of Physics who gave us a brief and at times overwhelming elementary particle physics lesson, followed by a tour to the original accelerator installed in the 1950's, known as the Synchrocyclotron. Incredibly, this machine was still in service producing ground breaking results until it was decommissioned in 1991, when it was determined that these experiments needed more power and more energetic particles. It is still situated in its own building encased in the original very thick reinforced concrete walls.
The following day the travelling team took time to visit the Palais des Nations UN Campus, formerly the League of Nations, but unfortunately it was closed to visitors. This left time to visit the stunning Botanical Gardens on the shore of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman in local parlance) with its mini bio-domes containing a variety of Australian plants.
We also had time to take in an external visit to Project Floyd, the new HQ for Japan Tobacco International. Under the bright sunshine and shadows cast by the long cantilever spans of this new steel framed and glass clad structure, Stuart Marsh gave an off the cuff technical talk relating the design challenges and construction obstacles surmounted, to realise Geneva’s newest office building, while Bryn Smith took some fantastic photos.
A very special thanks to Nerissa Webb (co-chairperson UK chapter) for coordinating all accommodation and activities, including a fabulous dinner in the Old Town. This excursion has definitely set a high standard for future regional tours, and one that will be tough to surpass.