Frank and I are in Bern on our way to CERN, as the LHC beams are finally online and being brought up to speed. The LHC beam got to Bern’s labs before we did.
But not much before we did — ATLAS recorded its first particle “splashes” on Nov. 20, not much more than a week ago.
The ATLAS group at Bern University focuses on data-acquisition and data-analysis. One of the many amazing things they showed us today is their giant realtime display of LHC information.
The lefthand side of the monitor (most of it not visible in this photo) shows many aspects of the LHC beam status. One young experimenter is here pointing to information about the most recent “event” recorded by ATLAS, from three different viewpoints. This was a cosmic ray event, which was superceded by a second cosmic ray event during the few minutes we stood looking at the monitor. (The beam status was “off” so collision events were not on view.)
The black rectangle with many particle tracks is a lovely revolving three-dimensional image of very the first beam “event” recorded by ATLAS. Wow.
I am definitely going to follow CERN on Twitter for more.
4 responses so far ↓
1 TA // Dec 4, 2009 at 9:31 am
Glad to see the blog is back… and soon particle physics, too. :) That young experimenter may not even have been in kindergarten the last time I was down in the LEP tunnel. o.O
2 About Problems and Nobel Prizes « uncondition // Dec 4, 2009 at 9:35 am
[…] Should have mentioned this before, but I assume you all know that Frank Wilczek’s wife Betsy Devine is beyond words! (that means that I a fan) Categories: culture, evolution, public man, […]
3 Betsy Devine // Dec 9, 2009 at 6:38 am
Hi TA — glad to see you are back as well, as our hemisphere gets closer to my unfavorite solstice.
4 TA // Dec 21, 2009 at 1:07 am
And here it comes. Dark and cold, but there is something to be said for turning points to the better.
Happy solstice. :)