We all met at the train station in Zürich to train to Geneva together, and the trip went quickly. There is something about traveling in a group that is quite fun. Our tour of CERN was scheduled for mid-afternoon, and we arrived just as the main presentation was starting.
A super-fantastically-nerdy physics professor gave us a 30-minute talk on CERN and the philosophy behind searching for dark matter and the Higgs boson. Let's be honest, most of it went right over my head. I am a little too practical to get super excited about nuclear physics, because it doesn't appear to me to be very useful to humanity to search for missing matter and particles that may or may not have existed at the beginning of time. However, I can appreciate the incredible feat of engineering and design that CERN involves.
We were also treated to the most incredibly cheesy promotional video for CERN. It involved some English chic riding her bike quite unsteadily around the collider tunnels (which are 100 m underground), and many scientists telling us that these experiments could blow our minds.
We then had a 1.5 hour-or-so tour of the facility, including one of the major experiments (LHCb) and a warehouse/lab where magnets are tested and equipment is on display. Our tour guide was another super-duper-nerdy physics professor who gave quite an entertaining tour, although he wasn't trying to be funny at all. It was really impressive to see the magnets and to learn about all of the detectors and the incredible engineering that made this place possible.
We were not able to actually go into the underground tunnels to see the collider. Even the scientists who do research there cannot go down into the tunnel, because everything is so sensitive and probably potentially dangerous. I was a little disappointed at first, until we saw a replica of the tunnel and I realized that the tunnel was not that large and that it was 100 m below ground. I don't really like being underground. At all. What sealed the deal was the fact that the replica tunnel had a "nearest exit 943 m or 2468 m" sign. Yikes! I can't imagine being 100 m below ground with the nearest exit being a kilometer away! Definitely not my idea of a good time.
After the tour, we said goodbye to most of the group, but a few of us chose to stay in Geneva overnight, since we don't get to this area of Switzerland very often. In fact, for most of us it was our first time there! We had dinner together and then wandered around the waterfront of Geneva, stopping for pictures of the super huge water fountain-thing in Lake Geneva. I'm not sure that this picture even does it justice- that thing was mondo!
We also stopped for the most expensive glass of wine that any of us have had in Switzerland yet- 12 CHF! Geneva is an expensive city, with more insanely nice cars than you could shake a stick at, including the first Bentley I've seen in person. It was lovely to stroll around Geneva in the twilight- the promenade along the lake is lit up with twinkly lights, and everyone was out and about.
