Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:30 am
CERN
Ahoy!
i have a lot of luck lately - my dads cousin lives in Geneva (Switzerland) and he works for CERN, one of the biggest research institutes in these times. He will retire in a couple of weeks, but he offered us to give us an exclusive tour through the area.
all in all, it was huge, interesting, simply - "fascinating"
here is some stuff about the things ive seen. so far only links to their offitial sites, maybe ill upload my pics and post them when i get to do it. (the whole research is public, so i could make lotsa pics)
linkies:
CERN:
link
ATLAS (the experiment):
link
(nice media stuff here)
a few interesting facts:
CERN has the largest particle accelerator on earth. ~9km diameter, ~27km long. its 100m below the surface for several reasons (radiation shielding, ...)
it is funded by an international comitee - countries can join in and fund the research there. if either country is in a state of war, CERN closes for that time and all research is stopped. CERN is not bound to a country, even if its located partially in switzerland and france. its kinda independant.
the offitial languages are french and english, but i found it fascinating that my relative who showed us the site could speak to 5 different ppl in their mother languages (french, english, german, hungarian, russian).
when CERN runs its experiments, they need ~1/3-1/2 of the power as Genf (Geneva) needs.
CERN has the biggest data storage in the world. dont ask me how many TB it is...
donno exactly but ill try to find out. but i know that when experiments run, then several GB of data is produced every second. (and that needs years to be processed and analyzed)
the guys(and girls) there dont use current technologies, they plan the things for hardware that will exist a few years in the future.
this is of course a great thing for the industry - the latest prototypes are in action there.
ATLAS was just one of the experiment buildups there. there are several. ATLAS is simply soooo huge.
link webcam pics, updated every couple of mins i think.
tha complete hall will be filled by the 40m long and 22m wide "ATLAS". it weighs ~11000 tons and will be finished in 2-3 years.
it will be used for all kinds of experiments in the future. the big ring stands still at the moment, there are also a few other huge experiments of similar scale that are built at the same time.
i was simply blown away by all this. great weekend
would do this anytime again.
Fjord
edit: PS: forgot to mention: to everyone who played the old Half-Life: visit CERN if u can, its just sooooooo similar the arhitecture, the tunnels, the research equipments, database centers - all veryvery familiar
Edited by - LordFjord on 12/7/2004 12:34:18 AM
i have a lot of luck lately - my dads cousin lives in Geneva (Switzerland) and he works for CERN, one of the biggest research institutes in these times. He will retire in a couple of weeks, but he offered us to give us an exclusive tour through the area.
all in all, it was huge, interesting, simply - "fascinating"
here is some stuff about the things ive seen. so far only links to their offitial sites, maybe ill upload my pics and post them when i get to do it. (the whole research is public, so i could make lotsa pics)
linkies:
CERN:
link
ATLAS (the experiment):
link
(nice media stuff here)
a few interesting facts:
CERN has the largest particle accelerator on earth. ~9km diameter, ~27km long. its 100m below the surface for several reasons (radiation shielding, ...)
it is funded by an international comitee - countries can join in and fund the research there. if either country is in a state of war, CERN closes for that time and all research is stopped. CERN is not bound to a country, even if its located partially in switzerland and france. its kinda independant.
the offitial languages are french and english, but i found it fascinating that my relative who showed us the site could speak to 5 different ppl in their mother languages (french, english, german, hungarian, russian).
when CERN runs its experiments, they need ~1/3-1/2 of the power as Genf (Geneva) needs.
CERN has the biggest data storage in the world. dont ask me how many TB it is...
donno exactly but ill try to find out. but i know that when experiments run, then several GB of data is produced every second. (and that needs years to be processed and analyzed)
the guys(and girls) there dont use current technologies, they plan the things for hardware that will exist a few years in the future.
this is of course a great thing for the industry - the latest prototypes are in action there.
ATLAS was just one of the experiment buildups there. there are several. ATLAS is simply soooo huge.
link webcam pics, updated every couple of mins i think.
tha complete hall will be filled by the 40m long and 22m wide "ATLAS". it weighs ~11000 tons and will be finished in 2-3 years.
it will be used for all kinds of experiments in the future. the big ring stands still at the moment, there are also a few other huge experiments of similar scale that are built at the same time.
i was simply blown away by all this. great weekend
would do this anytime again.
Fjord
edit: PS: forgot to mention: to everyone who played the old Half-Life: visit CERN if u can, its just sooooooo similar
the arhitecture, the tunnels, the research equipments, database centers - all veryvery familiar
Edited by - LordFjord on 12/7/2004 12:34:18 AM
