Notices tagged with mosi
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I was struck with the many little details the exhibit contained that were very true to life. This reproduction of a typical office at CERN (say, in Building 1), contained the obligatory bike helmet in the paper tray, old non-functioning equipment lying about on the floor, footwear where it ought not to be, and even a shell-shocked looking graduate student waiting for a plot to appear on her screen. #MOSI https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/312
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How do you measure the energy of a particle? This usually boils down to two principles: put a material in the path of the particle that forces it to interact, ideally losing all of its kinetic energy in the process; make sure that material converts the kinetic energy of the particle into other forms of energy, like light, that can be detected and whose properties (e.g. intensity, duration of pulse, etc.) tell you about the original amount of energy. This is a CMS calorimeter crystal, one of many many thousands that are designed to cause electrons and photons to dump all of their kinetic energy as light. #MOSI https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/310
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This room is entered through one side and puts you inside a particle collision. It's pretty neat, with a dramatic buildup to proton-proton collision and then BOOM. #MOSI https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/308
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This was the most interesting prop in the exhibit. As you walk down a hall containing components of the accelerator, you hear a radio sitting on a workbench. It's tuned just out of a signal, with static bursts and what sounds like a voice speaking but not really clear or audible. As you approach the radio, it must have a sensor; the soundtrack coming from it suddenly tunes to a clear transmission. It is the voice of a CERN physicist, talking about that terrible day in 2008 when the LHC exploded during testing of the magnet systems, destroying a section of the accelerator and delaying its start by another year. #MOSI https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/306
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What better way to get around in a racetrack for protons than to cycle? This cycle actually belonged to a CERN physicist who used it to get around the accelerator ring. #MOSI https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/304
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The "Collider" exhibit contained number of replicas of parts of the CERN site, including labs and offices. Whiteboard and blackboards are a critical part of physics, allowing for spontaneous problem solving and collaboration. These whiteboards, a little too neat to be real, nonetheless do the job of communicating the importance of a shared space where people can dream, calculate, and argue. #MOSI https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/302
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This glass tube was among the instrumentation used by J. J. Thompson on cathode rays. His work established the existence of the first subatomic particle: the electron. #MOSI https://chirp.cooleysekula.net/attachment/300