By Dr. Stephen Myers, CERN, Switzerland.

In March of last year, in probably the most important experiment ever, at a cost of almost €8billion, tens of thousands of scientists began recreating the Big Bang. But why?

The Large Hadron Collider underneath Geneva began smashing beams of protons into each other, marking the beginning of what is expected to be an important year in particle physics.

The LHC itself is probably the most important experiment of our recent history, and some would argue the most important of all time. With a massive budget, this experiment will give us the chance to explore the conditions that have not existed since the Big Bang, allowing us to to test some important theories of physics.

Dr Stephen Myers, originally from Belfast, now Director of Accelerators & Technology at CERN, will review the progress made with the performance of the LHC since the first 7 billion electron-volt collisions on March 30, 2010. He will highlight the accelerator physics, and machine protection issues which had to be addressed in order to push the performance. Dr Myers will then outline future plans of the LHC as its collisions increase in energy.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr Myers was born in Belfast, and educated at the Queen's University of Belfast, where he received a First Class Honours Degree in Electrical and Electronic engineering. He then completed a Ph.D at Queen's.

Having worked at CERN since 1972, Dr Myers was nominated by the CERN Council as Director of Accelerators and Technology effective from January 2009, "responsible for the operation and exploitation of the whole CERN accelerator complex, with particular emphasis on the LHC...". He has been honoured with many awards including honorary doctorates from the University of Geneva and Queen's University Belfast, the IOP Duddell Medal in 2003, and was recipient of the 2010 ACFA/IPAC'10 Achievement prize for outstanding work in the accelerator field (2010). He has been elected a Fellow of both the IOP and the European Physical Society.

WIN A TELESCOPE"

On the night of the lecture a Celestron Astromaster 70EQ will be raffled off and won by a lucky member of our audience! Tickets will be on sale before the lecture. The Astromaster will give you amazing views of the skies, including the Moon, nebulae, and Saturn!