Astronomy Ireland Public Lecture Report

The Large Hadron Collider
Searching for the God Particle

Lecture Report

Trinity College, Dublin

Listen to David Moore talk about CERN on Inishowen Community Radio

On Monday evening last hundreds of people crammed into the Ed Burke Theatre in Trinity College to hear who is probably the most important scientist in the world at the moment. Dr Stephen Myers, originally from Belfast, is now the Director of Accelerators at CERN. He is in charge of the operation of the Large Hadron Collider, buried beneath Geneva in Switzerland.

Dr Myers gave an excellent overview of the construction of this amazing facility and the amount of technology involved. He described the vast energies involved, the most memorable being how the energies in the accelerator are the equivalent of an aircraft carrier moving a battle speed! Not only that, but powering down the machine is like stopping that aircraft carrier in 40 seconds! It's hard to imagine that a particle smaller than an atom has such a vast amount of energy stored in it as it makes its way around the 27km long accelerator ring.

The construction and testing of the Large Hadron Collider was not without its mishaps: as a result of a single bad solder joint, there were electricity arcs which burst open an extremely cold helium supply, knocking huge magnets out of alignment. Dr Myers showed a fascinated audience images of the damage, including photos of joints which were once aligned to thousandths of a millimetre, skewed beyond practical use.

Thankfully, however, the LHC was repaired and after a delay, the machine began its test collisions as the team of scientists gradually ramped up the power. Within a few weeks, Dr Myers and his team effectively recreated all the Nobel Prize winning experiments that originally took place over a century. The LHC continues to operate extremely well and very much on schedule, returning huge amounts of data that are sure to guarantee even more Nobel Prizes in the coming year.

Dr Myers gave an incredible overview of what is the world's most important experiment, full of humour and wit, while still explaining the science behind it in a straightforward manner. After the lecture, which was co-hosted by the TCD Astrophysics Group, attendees made their way to The Lombard Inn along with Dr Myers and Astronomy Ireland to enjoy some complimentary food and an evening of craic!

If you could not attend the lecture, order a copy of the DVD HERE

Keep up to date on our Facebook and Twitter sites - links on the left.

Acknowledgment: Astronomy Ireland would like to thank the TCD Astrophysics Research Group for hosting AI public lectures in Trinity College Dublin.

 

Become a Friend of Astronomy Ireland, it's free!
www.astronomy.ie/friend

 

Become a Friend

Fun Science Fact: