Visit to CERN

Just came back from an amazing weekend in Geneva/Paris. Took the 7 a.m. train and spent most of the ride reading a book called "The Black Hole War" by Leonard Susskind in an attempt to brush up on some physics knowledge (especially the kind I'm interested in- black holes) before we arrived. The reason for this being that my professor doesn't believe that black holes exist. More on that later. Arrived in Geneva, dashed towards hostel and luckily they opened before their official 2 o'clock end of lunch break because the check-in process took forever. The hostel gives unlimited transportation cards with each stay, so although no one checked anyone passes, we rode the tram and bus for free all the way to CERN. Geneva has a pretty sophisticated public transportation system- very sleek with computer screens to tell you which stops are coming up.

Met Professor Reucroft at the welcome building and we headed to the cantine to meet his friend, Jim (no clue what the last name was), who teaches at BU and works on the ATLAS project (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS). We walked through the museum/exhibition area in the main building and Steve and Jim told us about their work. Steve had been working at CERN for 40 years (since he was a student) and has worked on tons of other experiments besides the LHC, so his perspective was really interesting. Jim is relatively "new" and has been working there for about 20 years, I believe. After the museum, we headed across the street to the ATLAS command center. It's rather underwhelming until you realize that through the glass windows, the physicists are controlling a giant piece of machinery with just computers. One of the points Steve and Jim made was that many of the big computing challenges are created/solved here. The WorldWideWeb, for example, was created to allow these scientists to communicate with each other. The amount of data they collect requires enormous amounts of memory. So neat. We were able to see diagrams of what a collision looks like- two protons collide, but don't necessarily remain as just protons. Electrons, neutrons, protons, muons... All of these result from the collision. An image is taken just after the collision and physicists look at the "signature" of each particle to determine what particles came out of the collision. For example, charged particles (electrons/protons) have curved paths as a result of the toroids (big magnets around the detector). Non-charged particles (muons, neutrons, etc) do not have curved paths. Each particle also shows a web at the end of its path and the place in which it does this also helps differentiate between particle types. Scientists are hoping to find new kinds of particles by examining collisions.

Tried to get down to the detector to look at it, but it was closed and a retina scan is needed to enter (unfortunately, my retina information hadn't made it to CERN ahead of time...), but we got to look down the shaft towards the big chamber. It's 1km underground, I believe, weighs as much as the Eiffel Tower, and is as tall as a 10 story building. When CERN was building it, entire sections of road had to be shut down because the trucks transporting pieces were as wide as a 2 lane road. Amazing!

After our mini tour, we headed back to the cantine for a beer. We'd already heard that physicists love drinking (see Facebook for picture/description of bubble chamber), and apparently many wonderful experiments have been designed at the tables in the cantine over a couple of brewskis. We started with our group of 5, and Jim and Steve's colleagues kept coming over until we were a group of 9. I was so amazed by these men. They're some of the most brilliant people in the world, but their knowledge isn't limited to physics. They're well-informed about global politics, they use Facebook and Skype and iPhones, and have interesting opinions on religion, education, healthcare... We talked about black holes- my professor thinks that people have accepted their existence too readily because it's a cool theory. There's been no actual proof that they exist, and theoretical physicists haven't really come up with any experiments for CERN to run to prove their existence. Sure, there's a gravitational force exerted at the center of galaxies, but it could be a neutron star, or a bunch of stars in a group. I'm disappointed to find out that my favorite scientific subject may be a bunch of malarkey, but it's still an interesting discussion to listen to. His views on education were interesting, too, and I mostly agree. He didn't do well in high school because he was a bit of a rebel and didn't do his schoolwork. He would never have gotten into college had a school in Liverpool not given him a trial period of a year in which to shape up. Of course, he enjoyed college and went on to become a pretty brilliant professor. He started working at Northeastern years ago because they offered the same opportunity, but now that they've stopped, the university has less and less appeal for him.

The other gentlemen had a surprise birthday party to go to, and Professor R. asked us where we'd like to go for dinner. He mentioned a steak place near the Geneva train station, or suggested that we take a short train ride to Nyon for some filet de perche (perch) straight out of Lake Geneva. Obviously, it was a tough choice. So we took said train ride to the most picturesque village I've seen yet in Europe. Very few cars, cobblestone streets, adorable little paths down the hill, perfect views of the lake... There had been some kind of street fair earlier in the day and a few beer stands were left. Further down our path, a man was playing a lively song in French and people were dancing and singing along (kind of a square dance thing). We arrived at the restaurant and apologized for not having any kind of reservation. "C'est bon" said the owner/waitress and asked a couple to move so we could have a table for 4. While they were setting up, we stood by the bar and had an aperitif. Ricard, an anise-flavored liqueur, apparently comes from Marseille and was created to replace absinthe when it was outlawed. To drink it, you take about 2 cl of the stuff and add ice and water until it becomes milky. It has a nice, light licorice flavor and literally makes you hungry even if you weren't before (we were starving, so we took the Professor's word for it). We had pre-ordered our perch, so we sat down and ordered a local Swiss white wine to go with it. We went through 4 carafes of it along with our butter-sauteed perch and amazing french fries. There was also a homemade tartar sauce that was out of this world. For "dessert," we ordered an appetizer. Malakoffs are pure baked deliciousness- cheese in breading served with cornichons, pickled onions and mustard. After dinner went for a walk by the lake before heading back to our train.

The next day we took the train to Paris. Maggie wanted to sleep, but luckily for me she threw her jacket over her head so I could open both window shades and run back and forth between the seats to look out the window. The train ride from Geneva to Lyon was absolutely gorgeous! Fog was rising from the river we rode by and looked absolutely ethereal. I need a new camera, however, because every time I want to take pictures, it takes soooo long to start up, focus, and actually snap the picture that I've already missed what ever I was photographing.

When we got to Paris we walked from Gare de l'Est past Notre Dame to rue de Rivoli. Decided against going to Angelina against because it was really busy and expensive, considering how much we'd spent on dinner the night before. Had delicious baguette sandwiches at a sidewalk cafe before walking through the Tuileries. Fashion Week was apparently over the weekend, but it was 30 euros to get in. I snagged the book of vendors, however, so I can look companies up when people reference them.

Museums are free on the first Sunday of the month, so we went to the Musee d'Orsay for a couple of hours before walking back towards the train station to find dinner. Stopped at a brasserie and had two styles of duck (breast w/ honey sauce for me, confit for Jason) and salmon for Maggie.

Great weekend trip. Icing on the cake: finding out that the Journee d'Integration we missed by going was full of drinking games that didn't sound fun, getting very uncomfortably dirty, bad food, and communal showers. Oh, and it would've cost 85 euros...