We’re getting testy
Mar 10th
One disgruntled physicist who sits in Building 40 is fed up. Remind me to never leave my coffee dishes anywhere near this dude(ette).
Public spaces NOT to be used for dish storage.
If we're not testing the parameters of the standard model, we sure as hell are testing each other's patience...
Farm life and accelerators
Feb 20th
The highest energy accelerators in the world cover a lot of ground. The LHC tunnel passes mostly hidden under pasture and a few small farms, but even right in the middle of the laboratories, assembly buildings, and offices of CERN’s Meyrin site one finds a flock of sheep. The sheep rotate through a few disjoint grassy patches small enough that I really start to wonder if it’s worth the trouble. CERN’s sibling over in the US, Fermilab, hosts on its grounds some even more substantial farm and wildlife: bison, horses, deer (though the population was heavily culled a few years back to make the roads safer) and some ponds well stocked with fish and frequented by herons.
At least one person has relayed the speculation that the animals are primarily present to allay local’s fears of radiation: if sheep can spend all day snacking on top of an accelerator then how dangerous can it be? The problem I have with this theory is that it makes no mention of the scientists who spend just as much time in just as much proximity to our scary science stuff. Does the public honestly think we are so driven to distraction by our whizzing particles that we might very well hang our balls in the beam to see if it tickles? Let me go on record and say definitively, no, we are not.
Below I present evidence of how deadly serious the Fermilab-CERN competition is.
Sheep take shelter under CERN's ISR overpass near one of the LHC assembly building.
One of my many coyote sightings at Fermilab
Potential for future study:
- Apply a Lotka–Volterra model to the CERN and Fermilab scientific populations.
- Cite this blog post as the only motivation.
- Win Ig Nobel prize (for a physicist of my meager stature, the equivalent of ‘profit’).
That is unless one of our five highly esteemed readers scoops me on this. I dare you.
Peaceful sounds at work
Feb 10th
Today, this was the definition of the “ambience” in CERN’s Building 40. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was being sabotaged.
Hear the atmosphere which is so conducive to productive work at CERN.
Open-air Batiment 40
Spares
Feb 3rd
The LHC will employ the use of 1,232 dipole magnets, which are cooled to superconducting temperatures by liquid helium at 2 Kelvin and will provide magnetic fields as strong as 8.33 Tesla. As one might imagine, these puppies are valuable. To string two of them together, without interrupting the circuits through which currents as high as 11,850 Amps will flow, requires a highly sophisticated splice mechanism which must have a resistance of less than 0.000080 Ω for the machine to work properly.
Otherwise, this happens.
Of course, since CERN decided to display these magnificent beasts prominently (including one proudly and boldly showcased on the otherwise beautiful green lawn outside CERN’s Restaurant 1), they had to find a way to protect their valuable end-connections. These are the blag end-plugs you see in this photo of the lawn dipole.
Well, I suppose CERN had a spare endcap. I would never have been creative enough to devise this plan for its fate.
Another magnet cover-gone-planter.
It really ties the room together.
Rusty pipes
Jan 22nd
Every unused parking lot and road side is a potential scrapyard, and CERN is blessed with a lot of strange junk. Here’s a random example. Any ideas what this was?
HOT AIR 160° C FOOD HOSE
Jan 11th
My 2010 New Year’s resolution is to eat/drink/inhale all my food/liquid/oxygen through this HOT AIR 160° C FOOD HOSE.
Winter shutdown
Dec 21st
A quiet Christmas
The winter shutdown has begun. CERN closes its doors, turns off the heat, and stops doing physics for two full weeks, starting today. And CERN Love will do the same.
It’s time to say good-bye to 2009 — an epic year — and prepare ourselves for the next stage of CERN craziness. We here at CERN Love have appreciated all your support and willingness to laugh a bit at a place which we are truly lucky to be associated with, but one which is pretty fucking weird. We’ll be on holidays ourselves, trying to party as hard as our colleagues… and it appears we won’t be missing much here at the lab →
The LHC is expected to come back to life near Valentine’s Day/Chinese New Year, 2010 (that is 14 February for those of you who are neither consumers of greeting cards printed in China nor printers of greeting cards printed in China). Don’t worry, CERN Love is expected to come back to life much sooner, around 6 January, shortly after work begins again at CERN.
CERN Love would like to extend our heartfelt season’s greetings to you and yours. As a small gift to you, we attach a gallery of pictures from current and past winters in Geneva (including Fête de l’Escalade) and CERN.
Love,
CERN Love
FOR THOSE WHO LIVE SPICY ONLY
Dec 18th
This week, we bring you another selection from the CERN Market. It seems that we often see some true goodness in and around the posts made on the CERN Market, and this week has no shortage of entertainment value. But, before rolling out the red carpet, perhaps some back-drop should be provided for the non-CERNois readership…
The CERN Market, provided as an open forum to CERN Users to serve as a marketplace for furniture, housing, and vechicles, is truly a lifesaver. Indeed, many gain some valuable experience by searching for apartments on the CERN Market, and I’m sure they combined income of the furniture salesmen/women could rival IKEA’s profits in a given year. Anyone who posts on the CERN Market must have the appropriate computer access to do so. Therefore, no spam is expected.
This week, while browsing an especially interesting category — Other — I came across a post that might have blended in well on craigslist.org, but was very clearly out of place here…
I present to you: “FOR THOSE WHO LIVE SPICY ONLY” (you’re going to want to zoom in on this, but read ahead to get some hints)
Spicy
Important Notes:
- These are natural fancy color diamonds we’re talking about here.
- These guys will provide door-to-door service with guaranty.
- The missing images (I tried at least a couple of browsers) are, as you would expect, named ‘Kama Sutra.’
I think CERN needs to consider tightening those access rights. On the other hand, CERN definitely needs its fair share of spice.
A very sturdy projector stand
Dec 7th
Let’s have our next physics meeting in the CMS assembly building. All we need is lots of PowerPoint slides, a 10 000 lumen projector, and a five-ton concrete block to set it on. Have some grad students carry it over here.
Nobel Frenzy
Dec 4th
CERN has a fan-base. I think this is clear. There are consistently many tour groups found on the grounds of the lab, oggling and snapping photos of smelly scientists, lovely buildings, and mysterious dipoles.
But it’s important to realize something: CERN tends to shower its fair share of praise on others, as well. When Tom Hanks came to CERN, the whole lab was watching. When the LHC re-turn-on was successful a few weeks ago, all eyes were on Steve Myers and his team of experts (I actually considered asking Stevie for his autograph…). And now, we have a celebration ongoing which makes Oscar night look like a 6-year-old’s birthday party at the skating rink.
Not only is CERN breaking world records in the field of accelerator science, but also in the “number of Nobel Prize laureates sitting in the same room” category:
A plethora of badasses.
These demi-gods are here as a part of the celebration of 50 years of a quite remarkable high-energy physics program at CERN: From the PS to the LHC: 50 Years of Nobel Memories in High-Energy Physics (ProTip: PS stands for “proton synchrotron,” which was the first accelerator here at CERN)
Disclaimer:
These men are truly amazing. Their work has contributed (greatly) to the advancement of one of the most fascinating fields of physics the world has ever seen. Their pioneering accomplishments should not be undersold.
Rant:
When these people show up, CERN-ites effectively turn into crazy teen-age girls from a 1960s Beatles concert. The festivities span two days, with a series of lectures, given by those pictured above, covering the history and development of high-energy physics in the context of CERN. In addition, there was a gala held in their honor last night in the ever-famous Restaurant 1. Actually, the event completely shut down R1 operations around 14:00 (it was scheduled to start at 19:00), at which time appeared a new collection of decorated tables, old equipment from previous accelerators and detectors, and various interactive stations that visitors could visit to hear about what’s currently going on with the LHC. The best part: crowds of visitors (I’ve never seen most of the people at this party), huddled around the laureates, drooling over every word they spoke. I didn’t quite understand the fandom.
Okay, so it wasn’t all that bad. There was a SHITLOAD of free food — which was French and delicious — and an ASSTON of free wine — which was pretty good, too.
If you’d like to keep up with the festivities, take a gander at these links:
- Schedule of presentations (If you don’t see slides attached, it’s because the speaker chose to use an overhead projector. Yes, I’m serious.)
- Live webcast
- Advertisement poster
I’m down with OP V
Dec 2nd
Well, the holiday season in Geneva is certainly getting off to a festive and boisterous start. From the pretty lighted trees by the lake to the yet-to-be-seen-illuminated Christmas lights in St-Genis-Pouilly, it’s clear that it’s time to get our “fête” on. Even more notable, the LHC has given us physicists an early present or two.
Needless to say, the past 10 days or so have been quite titillating at the lab. Thousands of e-mails have been exchanged, hundreds of plots have been generated, and many million cups of coffee have been consumed. As we “ramp up” for the next few weeks of beam and commissioning before CERN becomes a ghost town, I feel like it’s important to share with you, our devoted audience, a little taste of the magic.
Of course, it’s impossible to stay in the control room for one’s experiment 24/24 (or, for you ‘merkins, 24/7). So, the friendly guys down at the CERN Control Centre (CCC), the control room for the LHC, have created a web-based resource which one can use to receive up-to-the-minute updates on the status of the LHC proton beams. My friends, I present to you OP Vistars — Page 1:
Christmas lights for your browser.
If you’d like to check in every once in a while yourself, click here.
This page is a nice way to be kept in the loop about current activities along the LHC as well as its four experiments. Pay special attention to the ‘Comments’ box in the bottom left. This usually gives a good description of the plan for the immediate future. On the top, one can get some crucial beam information, including the number of protons per bunch in an LHC beam (denoted with an ‘I,’ shown for both beam 1 and beam 2), whether or not there is beam circulating (the two big green BEAM indicators), and the beam energy. The beam which was circulating for the example image was characterized by a proton energy of 450 GeV, which is equivalent to their energy at injection. Injection is quite a tricky process, and it occurs at points 2 and 8 along the LHC (hence the TI2 and TI8 acronyms).
When you really start to think about it, though, this is a masterfully designed, albeit mysterious, piece of internet. Actually, many of the individuals who gaze at this site for many hours a day are perplexed by some of its most prominent features. But the colors sure are nice! As an example of our confusion, in a survey of some 20 ATLAS physicists (my colleagues), I found that exactly 0 of them knew what the shit was going on in the four plots found in the middle of the screen. Noting the x- and y-axis labels, one might suspect that these should be showing the beam position in the x-y plane (and the left-most plot supports this), but nothing about plots (b)-(d) suggests this at all.
The ATLAS run coordinator is reputed to have said that, when one of these plots is shaped like the second plot above, the LHC is operating as a fixed-target collider interacting with someone’s head. I highly doubt it, Christophe.
Perhaps the most elusive question, however, is the following one: Does anyone know what the fuck “OP Vistars” means?
Room numbers: more is better
Nov 30th
In case you were distracted by some obscure technical ramblings about “beams” and “collisions”, you may have missed our hugely important announcement regarding CERN building numbers. If your mind has not been blown by CERN’s building numbering system, well, you better sit down, because the numbering going on inside buildings is about to get a lot more amazing.
Let’s take a look at buildings 593 and 572, home of the technical training classrooms. The classrooms are spread across these two adjacent buildings, attached by a short corridor.
Rooms at CERN are labeled with three numbers: building, floor, and room number. This actually makes sense. For example, the meeting room on the first floor of building 160 is labeled 160 1-009. Fair enough.
But CERN’s elite Technical Training team layers its own advanced numbering system on top of this, in an attempt to bring more choice to the customer. According to economists, more choice is always a good thing. For example, you can choose to refer to the auditorium as room 10 or room 11. Your choice. Room 10 means the auditorium. Room 11 means the auditorium. Room 10 also means a totally different room. And room 11 also means yet another different room. So many choices! I feel liberated, from my sanity, that is.
Building numbers revealed!
Nov 23rd
If you have ever been to CERN you know that the building numbers here don’t make a damn bit of sense. If they do follow any kind of scheme, it’s not a scheme that helps you find buildings.
Building 3 is adjacent to 4, but connecting them is building … 58! About one km away is building 57. And no, it’s not chronological, because the most recent one built was 41, whereas certain older buildings are labeled in the 800’s.
Well today is a big day in my life, for I’ve just discovered, after seven years of bafflement, that there is a method behind the madness! The method, it turns out, is stupid as hell. It is revealed by this single-slide PowerPoint presentation:
building numbering revealed
We are eternally grateful to M. Fabrice Chapuis for finally bringing this to light.
I’d like to highlight some features of this numbering scheme:
- Buildings 400-499 are reserved for “Roads, Car Parks, Storage Zones”. Wait, what? Buildings ≠ Roads.
- Buildings 1000-1099 are reserved for “Roads, Car Parks, Storage Zones”. Buildings ≠ Roads.
- Almost every building at CERN could be called an office building, because they almost all have mostly offices in them.
- There are three CERN Hostel buildings, a budget onsite hotel for visitors. Two of these, 38 and 41, are rare examples of buildings with no offices whatsoever. Yet they are classified under “Offices and Laboratories.”
- Why use such limited number ranges? For example, we’re already up to 188 out of 199 under “Workshops, Warehouses and Garages.” And by the way, 188 is mostly an office building.
- Why is there a gap between 549 and 860? This will slowly drive me insane, if I’m not already.
I guess I’m glad to finally know the secret, but I think my head is going to explode anyway.
Best of CERN: the CERN Market
Nov 18th
Well, since business here at CERN seems to be heating up (and, somehow, cooling down), I must admit that my time this week is limited. But, thankfully, a poster on the CERN web-based want ads was kind enough to come to my aid in providing our mid-week entertainment. It’s not hard to find particularly interesting posts here, but, sadly, one must have a CERN computing account to view the posts first-hand. For this reason, I’ve included a captured image of this featured CERN Market post for your viewing pleasure. In short, someone at CERN has a car that (s)he is trying to pawn off onto another poor soul who finds himself wary of CERN bikes or the utterly horrendous Y bus. However, there is a catch — rather, a few catches:
A CERN Market classic.
To be honest, I actually considered contacting the seller to have a look. I have no daughter to worry about, so I really have no excuses. I’m mostly incredibly interested in discovering what it means for a car to tilt in the middle.
Mysteries of the water tower
Nov 9th
Dearest CERN Lovers,
Today I would like to share a few mysteries surrounding the CERN water tower that have confounded me for years, as well as partial explanations I’ve heard that sound plausible but may or may not be true. I am a seeker, always striving to know and to comprehend, so if you have heard other explanations, I invite you to share them.
- Why did CERN originally build a water tower?
An Explanation: to cool one of the experiments (heard this from a well-known physicist). - What is it used for today?
An Explanation: drinking water - Why was it painted yellow?
An Explanation: Because a bright yellow eyesore is better than a concrete-colored eyesore. - Why was it only partially painted yellow?
An Explanation: an Italian firm was taking so long to paint it and increasing their price as they went that CERN management got fed up and called it off before it was finished (heard this from a crazy person). - Why does a water tower need a viewing room at the top surrounded by windows?
No known explanation
Any help you can offer to resolve these mysteries would be much appreciated!
Sincerely,
Biglove
“I can’t. I have shifts…”
Nov 4th
You thought that it was extravagant, the life of a particle physicist at CERN. You thought that daily life in Geneva was chock full of fancy watches, lavish cars, endless mounds of fondue, and the best croissants money can buy. You thought that the work being carried out here at the lab was nothing if not the most pertinent and revolutionary. You thought, “Man, I’d give anything to work at CERN.”
Think again.
Picture this: 50 sq. meters, 60 computer screens, and the guarantee that you’ll be spending the next eight hours of your life holed up here. Tonight, you are on shift. Tonight, from 11pm until 7am, you will be devoting your time to making sure that the detector is functioning properly. Don’t get too excited about this — you won’t actually have any control. Actually, if some component of your system enters a FAIL state, there are only a few options you have before you have to call a detector expert. None of those options will work, I guarantee you. So, you’ll call the Expert. And, no, she won’t be happy to help you, now that it’s 2.17am. But, you’ll survive.
The shifter's local coffee shop.
Then, around 5.27am, you’ll grow tired of nodding off at your bank of PC screens. You’ve been keeping an eye on the detector (it’s fine), keeping an eye on the data coming from the detector (it’s fine), and keeping an eye on that cute girl working a few desks away (she’s fine). But, it’s all you can do to stay awake, so you have to pull a lifeline. Coffee sounds nice, so you head to the nearest coffee shop, two floors above you. Shortly after struggling your cup free from this machine’s deathgrip, you’re well on your way to an ecstasy-laden morning. Best. Coffee. Ever.
At the end of your grueling eight hour shift, you can hardly remember why you had such adverse opinions about the job. One night of pretty boring nothingness (plus a few calls to your favorite detector experts) is hardly worth quitting over. But, then, you remember: this happens again the next night. And the next. Night shifts always come in 3’s…just like the best things in life.
In actuality, being on shift at CERN is a rather important task, and it’s a great way to contribute to the various experiments conducted on the LHC. But, I mean, come on…
Okay, it’s not the worst job; it’s second only to the job of an Expert.
If you’re still interested, and want to live alongside some other shifters, have a look at these webcams:
Also, it’s important to keep in mind that even Tom Hanks has been on shift.
Pipe in a box
Nov 2nd
metal box with pipe sticking out
Once upon a time, near the vineyards, past a parking lot, where the grass and flowers grow, at the farthest southeast corner of CERN, lived a metal box. This box sat alone and wore a hat. It was also a naughty box and had such a massive erection that a custom-made frame was required to support it. The box did not live near any buildings at all.There was nothing around the box but a few parked cars and grassy fields.
All day long, the box sat and ejaculated warm air and wet drops of some unidentified liquid out into the sunny Swiss air.
Hand-washing at CERN — it’s all in the details
Oct 28th
It’s true; scientists need a few gentle reminders every once in a while in order to maintain order and cleanliness. Just take a walk through CERN’s Restaurant 1 in the middle of the lunch hour, and you’ll be swarmed with a multitude of all-too-unpleasant smells resulting from lack of hygiene. In many cases, a not-so-subtle scolding from a significant other will have an effect. But, when it comes to more mundane habits like keeping one’s hands clean, we physicists really need more active guidance. Therefore, CERN has implemented a 12 Step Program designed to educate its community in the ways of hand hygiene. Nowadays, posted in several of the public lavatories around the lab, you’ll be lucky enough to find detailed instructions:
A tutorial.
From now on, you’ll never have to remember this intricate process yourself! An especially useful tool for physicsists, this should also ensure prevention of a massive H1N1 pandemic here at CERN. By following these steps (Wet, Soap, Wrists, Palms, Back of hands, Between fingers, Fingertips, Swirl fingertips, Thumbs, Rinse, Dry, and Turn off taps), you should have no problem keeping your hands squeaky clean. Finally, if you have questions or feedback, feel free to jot your thoughts down on the poster in green ink.
Useless Orifice
Oct 21st
Oh my god. I am a CERN user. Hence, I am priveleged enough to have the opportunity to interact with a very special group of people here at the lab: the Users’ Office. Today, I will introduce you to this incredibly useful resource by holding a tutorial on the use of their website; trust me — you’ll need help. Feel free to follow along with the screenshots presented below, or have a look at the site yourself: Start Here!
A great start to a great site.
Say you have one (1) task to accomplish on the U.O. website:
- You need to figure out what is required for a move to CERN (e.g., from your home institution)
That’s it. To begin, you have a few options based on the offerings on the lovely home page. Intuitively, you would choose to click on the ‘Before Coming to CERN’ link. After clicking, up pops a lovely PDF file with a flowchart; after three minutes of perusing this, you realize it’s the flowchart from hell. In fact, you’re not even sure where to go from the first balloon. Back to the drawing board. Glancing again at the home page, you think, “Perhaps it’s useful to read the Newcomers Guide — after all, it’s on my to-do list.” After clicking the link (NB: you can choose the link from the menu sidebar or from the body of the page), you’re shocked and astounded by the transformation which has taken place. Read the rest of this entry »
Playing a serious game of catch…
Oct 5th
hurtling water bottle
… with a water bottle. A plastic water bottle, full, possibly unopened. On the green lawn in the evening, outside the patio of R1,
CERN’s pre-eminent cafeteria. Three summer students, with earnest demeanor, spent their evening hours dramatically cocking back their throwing arms as if pitching baseballs, and throwing a water bottle to each other, 50 meters apart, back and forth.
Not laughing. Not joking. Just throwing and catching. As professional athletes do.
where it happened
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Catch this plastic water bottle, intercept its hard corners. Touch its pregnant belly so full of water, as it hurtles towards your face. It is not a baseball; it is a water bottle.
Dan Brown, you know nothing of CERN. We don’t need frisbees; we have water bottles.
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