A Smashing Visit to CERN

As the rest of the College community enjoyed their Christmas jumper day festivities, a group of lucky Upper Sixth physicists embarked on a two-day adventure to CERN, the European Council for Nuclear Research, home to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the discovery of the Higgs boson!

Their journey began in the Kino to watch the documentary Particle Fever that provide them with some background knowledge on the incredible discovery and the type of research that takes place at a particle collider. Then, after a short coach ride to Gatwick and a quick lunch in the airport, they were on the plane to Geneva!

That evening, despite the weather, they wrapped up warm in hats, gloves and waterproof coats and headed to Geneva Christmas Market - the perfect way to kick off the Christmas season, with beautiful lights and decorations, many lovely stalls selling gifts and souvenirs and a wide range of delicious Swiss food to try. 

The next morning, they were up bright and early to catch the tram to CERN. Upon arrival, they watched a video about how the LHC works with its four different detectors and what the applications of any future discoveries made at CERN may be, from dark energy to supersymmetry. Then, they split into two groups to visit the CERN Control Centre and ALICE, one of the detectors that focuses on the collisions of heavy ions such as lead.

This level of insight was fascinating to learn about for our pupils, seeing the different ways that fundamental particles are detected, from the electromagnetic calorimeters to the specific muon detectors. The afternoon was spent in CERN’s brand-new education centre, exploring exhibitions from including ‘quantum world’ and ‘our universe’, that takes revellers on a journey 13.8 billion years back in time.

An excellent trip that was superbly organised as always, this really is one of the highlight trips of the calendar year!