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Smiles all round for my favourite experience in Sixth Form.
Jonathan I
As a starting point we learnt that CERN's origins can be traced to the 1940s. A small number of visionary scientists in Europe and North America identified the need for Europe to have a world-class physics research facility. Their vision was both to stop the brain drain to America that had begun during the Second World War, and to provide a force for unity in post-war Europe. At Paris in December 1951, the establishment of a European Council for Nuclear Research (in French Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) was agreed. Two months later the acronym CERN was born.
Today, our understanding of matter goes much deeper than the nucleus, and CERN's main area of research is particle physics hence CERN is often referred to as the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.
We started with a unique tour of some of the facilities not on the usual guide map. Our guide, Nicolas, has been working at CERN for three years in the Data Centre. He took us to see CERN’s very first particle accelerator. The 600 MeV Synchrocyclotron was built in 1957 and it provided beams of electrons for CERN’s first experiments in particle and nuclear physics. In 1964 this machine was superseded by the more powerful Proton Synchrotron. The underlying physics of using a high potential to accelerate charged particles across a gap in a vacuum chamber and then redirect them using a strong magnetic field is essentially the same for the LHC (large Hadron Collider) working today. The original cyclotron we saw was a few meters in diameter and could accelerate particles to 80% the speed of light; the LHC has a circumference of 27km and achieves particle velocities up to 99.99% of the speed of light. We learnt that in 2012, experiments in the LHC confirmed the existence of the Higg’s boson. The Higgs field gives particles mass at a quantum level and so confirms more fully the standard model.
It was fascinating to learn how scientists had to meet in a particular country whenever they needed to share information. Recognising how inefficient this was, they worked on ways to get this information to each other in a quicker fashion. This led to the birth of the World Wide Web.
Johnson C and Alastair H
It was CERN’s ever increasing need to be able to analyse vast sets of data coming from the experiments that drove the development of the first network of computers and then the need for a protocol to share information with scientists across the globe. Tim Berners-Lee, a leading researcher at CERN, wrote a paper outlining this protocol. His supervisor commented that Lee’s work was, ‘Interesting but a bit vague’. The protocol became the famous HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that now enables the World Wide Web and internet that we all rely on daily. CERN itself now has optical fibre links with every populated continent.
It was mind boggling to see the sheer scale required to store all the data collected and processed by the scientists at CERN. It became quite clear that it wasn't a place just for physicists, it requires expertise from a multidisciplinary team including computer scientists.
Josh P
Next was a visit to a building that housed the antimatter decelerator and containment chambers called ‘Elena’. This was absolutely fascinating, upon entry into the building we stood on a gantry high above the hexagonal ‘ring’. We could see the blue dipole magnets for bending the beam at each of the vertices, either side of them were the smaller quadrupole magnets, painted in orange, that refocus and bunch the beams of antiprotons. Leading into Elena was the injection pipe that carries the high energy beam of antiprotons from the main accelerator. Elena is an experiment that has been used to make antihydrogen, and in the last few years experiments on the antihydrogen have been carried out to investigate the behaviour of antimatter in Earth’s gravitational field. It turns out that antimatter also falls at the same rate as matter, so in this respect its mass is the same, much to Nicolas’s disgruntlement! He had hoped that antihydrogen atoms would accelerate upwards and hence give us a means of infinite propulsion to reach warp speeds. It turns out scientists too can have dreams!

I found it fascinating how positronium can exist, even for a short time, despite it being made of two things that would annihilate if they touched each other.
Mejafe A
After lunch at the scientists café we explored the display of the original bubble chambers and high voltage apparatus and then the brand new visitor centre. The interactive activities are fabulous, Mr Collins and Dr Dowell got to be reduced to electron size and then experience quantum mechanical tunnelling. Kian explained the star cycle with an interactive display, whilst others showed off their football prowess kicking protons into a detector, discovering how hard it is to ensure an interaction takes place in exactly the correct part of an accelerator. We rounded the day off with bowling and pizza by the mile, after all what better sport is there for physicists.
It was brilliant fun playing the games at the exhibition centre. It made everything that is so complex about this topic so much more visual and interactive. It was so easy to understand.
Kian Z
After visiting CERN, I now have a much better understanding of the ground-breaking research that goes on there. It was scintillating.
Sebastian K H
Sunday morning saw a visit to the Red Cross Museum, a very moving experience in which we learnt about the foundation of the Red Cross movement and its invaluable work reconnecting families separated by warfare. We learnt how the Red Cross brings hope to prisoners all over the world, often enabling those in the world’s harshest prisons to stay connected with family. Everyone then took part in a team game that developed an understanding of how preventative measures and preparation for natural disaster can save a population. In our second attempt of the game, the second round we managed to save over 99% of the population of an island from a tsunami. This highlighted the important aspect of teamwork and preparation. Humanity, neutrality and total confidentiality are the key to the success of the Red Cross across the world, the organisation has now adopted the symbol of a red diamond to ensure their continued separation from any ideology or religious belief.
Some of the exhibitions were almost visceral. A letter written by a French soldier providing solace to his sister left a mark on me.
Adrian C
The profound impact of seeing all the children impacted by war was heartbreaking for all of us.
Karan M
Everyone then enjoyed time to explore the lakeside and the beautiful old city of Geneva in the midst of a music festival with a choir in the bandstand, traditional folk music bands and musical events taking place across the town. The day finished with a traditional Swiss meal and Fondue.