CERN Project Director meets Maelor Students

(More Photos - click on link at bottom of the page)
CERN LHC Project director Dr. Lyn Evans met our A level Physics students in November 2007, and the visit was covered by the BBC.

Physics A level students had the opportunity of a lifetime this year during the fourth annual visit to CERN Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva. Project Director Dr. Evans allowed them to visit areas that no other member of the public had ever been to. A journey 100m underground took them to the heart of the new particle accelerator, which is due to be turned on in May 2008. They went into the 27km circular tunnel which crosses the Swiss-French border.

The trip is in its fourth year and has grown now to encompass Geneva the Swiss capital into the trip and the Jet d'Eau (the fountain in the lake). It is an amazing 140m high and sends 700 litres of water a second into the air at 200kmph.

In CERN students see and hear about the practical side to the theory they have learnt in Physics lessons in Yr 12, as in CERN they have the largest particle accelerator in the world. CERN is at the forefront of sub atomic physics and is conducting experiments to determine the smallest most fundamental particles in our universe as well as how our world was created. The fame brought to it by Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" makes a tour such as this very attractive. A new particle accelerator is being built at the moment. It is due to be opened in early 2008 and will be huge. Built 100m below ground it will be an amazing 27km round. Particles will be accelerated both ways around the track and then collided into each other at close to the speed of light. A detector will be finding out exactly what new particles will be created. However, the detector will be bigger than any of our school buildings. The electromagnets fit around the detector. They operate at extremely low temperatures because they rely on superconductivity.

Our guide was one of CERN's physicists who displayed a real passion for finding out the answers to questions about what matter really is and how physics can help to explain the existence of our universe.

More photos of our visit here.

Facts and figures about CERN here.

Visit CERN's website to find out more on www.cern.ch