They must have been mighty inspired to call a particle a beauty quark. Not sure why a bottom quark became known as beauty quark, I browsed the English language internet and stumbled on a cute site here. The term adds to the cute and cool factor of an overall electrical engineering intensive site.
Sunday was my first encounter with such temporary matter, at the open house of the CERN, for their 60th anniversary. I received a ticket with my name about a week before my visit, with the GPS coordinate of the underground tunnel entrance(I appreciated the geek factor). I researched the public transportation access but it was futile. So I ended up taking the train to the airport, and taking a cab from the French side of the airport to a place merely across the field.
Stripped of a full 30 euros for cab fare, I separated from my handbag, got my ticket scanned, and got in line for the tunnel 8 entrance. Fully dressed in white and a maxi skirt, I added a bit of lacy frivolity to a group of overly mountain shoes and trousers-wearing visitors and guides. The cute yellow helmet and a big plastic badge was added to the apparel to visit the site.
After zooming down to 103m below ground with a green elevator (the only fire escape route), we got face to face with the DELPHI experiment doughnut shaped engine. Far from being industrial grey and dark, the inside of the tunnel was shining in bright basic Lego colours: yellow platforms , metallic blue rails, orange and red wires, gold plated mirrors, green motherboards and scaffolding. I could not remember why the tracker was in doughnut shape or why silicone tube was used.
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We also stood at the lowest point of the tunnel, at 103 m below sea level, where apparently an opera was held as the tunnel's acoustic was so preciously fantastic. At that point, a 10 m diameter well was used to lower down the equipment.
Moving on past the data collection computer room, where a number of regular PC save the data generated by 40 000 000 collisions or so per second, we then stopped to stare at the recent and contemporary LHCb experiment. Our guide was working on this particular experiment and was particularly enthusiastic about it.
They set up to collect only a certain type of particle within a specific angle of the collision, and only one side (left side for example), with as much precision as possible. So instead of using resources for both sides of the collision, they focus their tracking resources in getting as much data as possible from one side, trying to capture as accurately as possible half the amount of particle of interest. The trackers are the flat silicon panels on rails. The blue box is a magnet that deflects the particle, so that by measuring the deflection angle they can determine the momentum of the particle, and identify the particle by its energy...
As the tour came to a close and the 11 of us boarded the green elevator again, our guide kindly explained in layman's term the origin of the search for antimatter. And in my memory, it imprinted as follows:
-the conservation law by Einstein equation E=MC2 can be seen as Energy=Mass, overlooking the celerity
-by Mass however, at high lever of Energy, it is composed of matter and antimatter
-the characteristics of the antimatter are what motivates the whole research
In this dieting age, it is very true: spend a lot of energy to create muscle and loose mass (of antimatter?)!
Sunday was my first encounter with such temporary matter, at the open house of the CERN, for their 60th anniversary. I received a ticket with my name about a week before my visit, with the GPS coordinate of the underground tunnel entrance(I appreciated the geek factor). I researched the public transportation access but it was futile. So I ended up taking the train to the airport, and taking a cab from the French side of the airport to a place merely across the field.
Stripped of a full 30 euros for cab fare, I separated from my handbag, got my ticket scanned, and got in line for the tunnel 8 entrance. Fully dressed in white and a maxi skirt, I added a bit of lacy frivolity to a group of overly mountain shoes and trousers-wearing visitors and guides. The cute yellow helmet and a big plastic badge was added to the apparel to visit the site.
After zooming down to 103m below ground with a green elevator (the only fire escape route), we got face to face with the DELPHI experiment doughnut shaped engine. Far from being industrial grey and dark, the inside of the tunnel was shining in bright basic Lego colours: yellow platforms , metallic blue rails, orange and red wires, gold plated mirrors, green motherboards and scaffolding. I could not remember why the tracker was in doughnut shape or why silicone tube was used.
We also stood at the lowest point of the tunnel, at 103 m below sea level, where apparently an opera was held as the tunnel's acoustic was so preciously fantastic. At that point, a 10 m diameter well was used to lower down the equipment.
Moving on past the data collection computer room, where a number of regular PC save the data generated by 40 000 000 collisions or so per second, we then stopped to stare at the recent and contemporary LHCb experiment. Our guide was working on this particular experiment and was particularly enthusiastic about it.
They set up to collect only a certain type of particle within a specific angle of the collision, and only one side (left side for example), with as much precision as possible. So instead of using resources for both sides of the collision, they focus their tracking resources in getting as much data as possible from one side, trying to capture as accurately as possible half the amount of particle of interest. The trackers are the flat silicon panels on rails. The blue box is a magnet that deflects the particle, so that by measuring the deflection angle they can determine the momentum of the particle, and identify the particle by its energy...
As the tour came to a close and the 11 of us boarded the green elevator again, our guide kindly explained in layman's term the origin of the search for antimatter. And in my memory, it imprinted as follows:
-the conservation law by Einstein equation E=MC2 can be seen as Energy=Mass, overlooking the celerity
-by Mass however, at high lever of Energy, it is composed of matter and antimatter
-the characteristics of the antimatter are what motivates the whole research
In this dieting age, it is very true: spend a lot of energy to create muscle and loose mass (of antimatter?)!
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