The secret lives of particles

The secret lives of particles

Home again, home again!

WOW! I am at the moment sitting on my couch reviewing the photos of the last three weeks and I am in awe, mainly, with all the amazing people I have met. This fantastic opportunity to experience lectures in particle physics, accelerators and detectors was, in some ways, overshadowed by the amazing teachers I have met. Their commitment and experiences have taught me so much and I am thankful for their laughter, support and general good times had.

I am overwhelmed at the amazing work people at CERN do. If I could make only one statement about the High School Teachers Program, I would say make sure you apply, and make sure you go. It is a life changing experience, not just for you, but for all the students you will be teaching after your experience.

If you have any questions, or require any information, please don't hesitate to contact me.
Take care,
Juliana

The Scientists of CERN

So far the teacher's project I am working on is going well. We started the day with our first lecture in Cosmology and then we sat in on the second part of Rolf Landua's lecture on Antimatter. After lunch we all got stuck into our projects and 4 hours later, there is still not a person to be seen out on the terrace enjoying the evening. The dedication is really something to marvel at, as all the teachers here are either on their summer holidays, or winter holidays. The amount of work going into the projects means that we will all have something useful to take back and share with our students and communities about CERN and Physics.

Tomorrow we continue to interview prominent female scientists for our project, take our final lecture on cosmology and check out the medical applications of the research that is and has taken place through nuclear physics.

Nobel Prize Winners and Teacher Working Groups

Yesterday afternoon's lecture from the winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, Steven Weinberg, was amazing. The Globe of Science and Innovation (the venue for the talk) was so full that people were being turned back and weren't allowed in. Admittedly I was not very familiar with the subject content of the lecture, but to be in the presence of such an interesting Physics speaker was amazing. He weaved a story through his lecture and it was really a moment I won't forget. CERN is just an unbelievable place.

This week has seen the start of our working groups on teacher projects. I have decided to interview female physicists that work at CERN and come up with some classroom activities to promote the amazing opportunities available to female scientists. I will be bringing to you some of the profiles next week, and hopefully some video also.

I am really looking forward to the second part of Rolf Landua's lecture on antimatter, and the experiments that are taking place in the "Antimatter Factory", which is also known as the antiproton decelerator (AD). Every particle that we know, electron, proton etc has an antimatter equivalent. Electrons have positrons as there antimatter. As far as physicists can tell the matter and antimatter pairs are identical, apart from some minor intrinsic values, such as their charge. At the antimatter factory they have created antiprotons (negatively charged protons) and antihydrogen atoms also. If you have read or seen Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, then you may be under the wrong impression. Although antimatter has been created at CERN, there is no way that 1 g of it could be produced. The AD on average will only produce 1 pair of proton/antiproton out of 250 000 collisions!

The Geneva Treasure Hunt

The weekend was a real adventure. The time off was really appreciated and on Sunday afternoon, from 3pm-7pm all the teachers from the program participated in a treasure hunt around Geneva. The amazing city was explored from the tram stop, to the cobbled streets of the Old City, to the heights of the Cathedral to the water spray of the Jet D'eau and the boat ride across Lake Geneva. The city is full of amazing architecture, art and history. The evening was spent eating fondue, which was wonderful.

Today we continued on with lectures from Daniel Brandt on an introduction to particle accelerators and the physics ideas behind particle detectors from our resident physicist Gron Jones. The key concepts from Gron's lecture are all to do with momentum and energy, and the importance of the conservation laws in all types of physics, Newtonian and Relativistic. This is a concept that is generally hard for students to grasp, and I hope that the extra information I have gleaned from Gron's lecture will be useful in making better connections in this topic for Physics students.

There was also an announcement of the projects on offer, as we all are to participate in programs that improve the activities already offered by CERN for visiting teachers and students. These projects will be presented at the end of the third week.

Tomorrow holds more lectures and a decision on which project we would like to work on.