i am a huge nerd. i love physics. specifically theoretical physics. specifically string theory and the quest to discover a T.O.E. (theory of everything). science today is extremely close to unlocking the secrets of the universe and the place on earth that is making the greatest contribution to this quest is CERN, the european center for nuclear research.
CERN is home to the brand new large hadron collider or LHC - the world’s largest particle accelerator. basically they shoot protons around this 27km long ring buried 100m underground until they reach 99.9% the speed of light (!). then they smash them into each other and observe the results. it was a total dork-dream come true to visit this place, and even though i didn’t get the tour that i had tried to book months in advance (seriously) i still had a great time visiting ‘microcosm’ - this exhibit that explains the history of CERN and what they’re trying to find.
and i got to play with things like this ! :
yep, that’s a geiger counter. this is what it reads when detecting radiation from a watch made with radium in the 1950s. that’s high, btw.
when particles smash together, the various detectors that are set up track the trails and energy emitted by the smaller particles that compose them. protons are made of quarks, for instance, so when two protons collide they emit quarks - and a whole bunch of other interesting things. above is picture of the methods they used to map particle paths in the 70s. basically using a big overhead projector.
here’s a photo of a photo of what that looks like printed. and a physicist (with awesome 70s hair) observing the results (in the 70s).
