Fourth Day

On Friday we took a bus to CMS. This is a detector in the French part of the LHC. When we arrived we were immediately taken into the facility. We first took a look at the above ground part of the facility and a live size poster of the detector (30x20x40m!!). Then we walked to the control room of CMS and went in to see the scientist monitor the detector and beam to make sure nothing went wrong. Next we knew, we were taken 100m below ground to look at the old service room and the data storage close to the detector. Unfortunately we were not allowed into the tunnel of the LHC or to go see the LHC due to the extreme magnetic field and high level of radiation. We got a tour through the part which we were allowed in and after this we went back up and back to the centre of CERN. Here we got a lecture on knowledge transfer in which someone who works for CERN's relationship to the business sector told how he ended up being employed for CERN and how his experience in the business sector was so much different than working for CERN. It was quite interesting to hear from a non-scientist what it is like to work for such an organization as CERN, and how it differs from working for companies. Next we had lunch and went to the superconducting lab at CERN where we got a very small tour (as we actually were not allowed in) and did a small experiment to see the effect of cooling magnets down to almost the coldest temperature possible. This was the last thing we did at CERN and next we went to Geneva to have some time for shopping before going to the airport to fly back to Amsterdam!