In February students from the Physics department visited Geneva, home of the Large Hadron Collider.

The short visit offered students the opportunity to see Physics being applied in the real world. After arriving on Sunday evening, the group checked into their hotel and tried to quell their excitement and get a good night’s sleep in preparation for exploring the city of Geneva. Monday’s highlights included visiting the UN, Geneva Cathedral and their English Garden as well as a boat ride across Lake Geneva.

On the Sunday the focus was CERN and it’s two museums:

The Globe (of science and innovation)

The purpose of the “Universe of particles” exhibition is for visitors to confront the great questions of contemporary physics, currently being explored by the CERN.

Microcosm – The Museum of Particle Physics

This museum focusses on the purpose of CERN and particle physics research in general. 

A Student’s perspective of Geneva

As a student of physics at Ashton Sixth Form College, I got the opportunity to be involved on a trip to visit the large hadron collider, in Geneva. This trip in my opinion wasn’t just an educational experience, but one that I will remember for many reasons.

Through this trip we didn’t only get the chance to visit CERN, but also embrace in the beautiful city that is Geneva. In Geneva we got to visit such sights such as the UN and the English gardens; which consists of a clock made up of nothing but flowers. One of the more strange sights, we got the pleasure to view was that of the world’s longest bench, spreading 120m in length.

When we got to CERN, we were able to roam freely around the museums alone, which allowed us to make use of independent learning. Through visiting these museums I now have a wider understanding on how the world of particle physics works.

After a vastly expensive lunch at CERN we were given tours around the facility witnessing, strange and unique sights such as proton accelerators, and the very first prototype webpage.

So overall the trip to Geneva wasn’t just an educational visit, but one that I can say personally was fun.

Conor Frater