On the 19th of June the students of Grade 12 took off from Delhi bound for Geneva. There we experienced a week of learning and fun at CERN. Every day had new experiences and new challenges to face and by the end we had experienced the most fun any of us had ever had.
DAY 1:
So after a gruelling trip from Delhi IGI to Geneva International we finally arrived late in the night. By then we were tired yet excited about what was to come and we were positively buzzing during the ride to the hotel. There we managed to check into our rooms (with some difficulty about the wifi settings) and enjoyed a very late dinner from a classic Geneva food truck.
DAY 2:
So on day 2 with some sleep we began our first day at CERN. With the group assembled we headed via tram to the research centre where we entered the scientific world. We began with an introduction to CERN by a scientist named Mic who would be our guide for the week. The lecture told us about CERN, its functions and what was in store in the future. For us it was very informative learning about the functions and experiments being run at CERN from the antimatter production to the massive LHC to the dark matter detectors, CERN had it all. With that we also managed to enjoy a nice lunch at CERNs very very very large cafeteria and played some Table Tennis in the sun. After CERN we went to see the famous Lake Geneva and the Jet d’eau plus had some fun walking up the boardwalk and skipping stones in the lake (some of us were better than others). We finally had our dinner and retired for the next day.
DAY 3:
On Day 3 we managed to see two of the most amazing experiments at CERN: The antimatter production units and LEIR. CERN is the only facility in the world that can produce Antimatter, as per the name it is formed from the antiparticles of all matter that we can observe. Antimatter studies are exceedingly difficult due to the fact that antimatter and matter don’t mix and if they meet they quite literally explode. To overcome this scientists at CERN built accelerators to hold the particles for as long as possible for study. Their newest accelerator nicknames ELENA was under construction and would be going online sometime in 2016. LEIR is the Low Energy Ion Ring; contrary to popular belief protons are not the only particles the LHC collides. It also can collide heavy lead ions for different experiments; to do this it uses the LINAC 3 (Linear Accelerator 3) and LEIR to accelerate the ions to high speeds before injecting them into the LHCs accelerator chain. Both these experiments are ground breaking and it was a lot of fun seeing them and learning about them.
DAY 4:
On day three we crossed into France to see a special experiment, the AMS. The AMS or Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer is a special detector mounted on the ISS. Its primary function is to look for the elusive Dark matter and the explosive Antimatter. Both Dark and Anti Matter are substances scientists at CERN love to study. They may hold the keys to answering some of the most fundamental questions about our existences and the universe. We saw the control centre and a real live map of the ISSs location with all the detectors data being uploaded real time. AMS was launched into space on board space shuttle Endeavour and was a global collaboration in science. It was truly a remarkable sight.
After lunch we managed to get to perform our own physics experiment. We had to make a cloud chamber, a sort of detector which although much simpler than the high tech ones at CERN could still be used to detect particles. We made our chambers and were told to present our findings as though we were presenting them to an international council on physics for the first time. We learned a lot not only about physics but also data presentation and data collection, most importantly how to show any evidence you have found.
DAY 5:
On day 5 we had a very special event. We had a treasure hunt….of sorts. Basically there were a bunch of questions given to us and as a team we had to move around Geneva and answer those questions by looking at landmarks or asking the local populace. This was an excellent opportunity for sightseeing and we saw a lot of Geneva as well as learned about its history and a few of us even tried out our French speaking skills. Overall we came second but the amount of fun we had by rushing around Geneva is something we’ll never forget. We then went back to CERN after lunch and learned about CERNs functions is sciences other than physics such as in Biology to help treat diseases such as Cancer and we were able to see the CERN data centres where the World Wide Web was created and where all the data for CERN was held. The lectures about these showed us the truly multipurpose functions of CERN as a whole.
DAY 6:
On day 6 we crossed into France one last time to see the Testing facility where CERN tests all of its accelerator components including the most advanced Cryogenics in the world. The cryogenic tech at CERN could cool the entire 27kms of the LHC to just 4 Kelvin. To put that into perspective your freezer runs at 269 Kelvin and liquid Nitrogen freezes at 69 Kelvin. No wonder the LHC is the coldest place on earth. This is needed to help the conductors of the LHC reach a superconducting state with almost zero resistance. The facility was absolutely massive and they were testing LHC tubes right before our eyes as we made out tour. We also got to see the ATLAS control room where the ATLAS experiment was run and saw some cool presentations on the topic. Sadly the LHC was down for maintenance when we got there so we didn’t really see it in action. We also had our final Q and A session with Mic and there ended our journey at CERN. The days were filled with learning and fun and overall we had an absolute blast being at the worlds most advanced research centre. On the last day we also visited the United Nations HQ in Geneva, the sprawling facility had massive conference rooms and we saw historic areas where ceasefires between many nations including India and Pakistan had been signed. We left to go to our hotel one last time remembering all the amazing times we had, however it wasn’t over just yet.
DAY 7 (Final Day):
On our final day we packed and hopped on the bus to leave Geneva for France, but this time we were heading to Chamonix, the mountaintop village which had beautiful views, some great food and a lot of rain. Entering Chamonix we hit possibly thee largest rainstorm I have ever experienced. We got absolutely soaked but managed to make it through as we waited out the storm in a restaurant. Once the sky cleared we saw amazing views of Chamonix with Mount Blanc in the background, it was so surreal some of us thought it was a movie set. We bought lots of souvenirs and took way too many pictures and overall it was a fitting end to the trip. The sightseeing ended as we headed back to Geneva airport for our flight back to India and finally on the 25th of June we left Geneva behind. The experience we had there was amazing and I don’t believe any of us are forgetting the knowledge we gained or the experiences we had.
