Collider (as in Large Hadron)
This is another exhibition that I should've visited sooner, as it closes in a couple of months.
Collider
is a temporary exhibition at the Science Museum in London, all about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It explores the science, the engineering, and what it's like to actually work at CERN. It concentrates on the second and third of these, as a true understanding of the science is probably beyond most of us.
As physicists have probed deeper and deeper into the structure of matter and energy, on smaller and smaller scales, the experiments have become larger and more expensive. The electron was discovered by two men working in a lab the size of a typical living room. Confirming the existence of the Higgs boson required a machine the size of a city, built and operated by 10,000 people from all over the world, and cost £10 billion. (As a side note, it amazes me that this particle was predicted 50 years ago, long before any instrument existed that could produce or detect it.)
The exhibition is in two parts. The first is about the history of particle physics before the LHC. The second is a reconstruction of parts of the LHC and CERN. It's built in a curving, branching structure, reminiscent of the swirls and circles of the tunnels that house the LHC itself. Watch out for a walk-on from Professor Brian Cox in the introductory video.
There were some objects where it wasn't clear to me whether they were the real thing or scale models. (Everything about the LHC is absurdly large or absurdly small. The two beams of protons that circle inside it before being smashed together have as much energy in total as 173 kilograms of TNT, and yet a cylinder of hydrogen the size of a fire extinguisher can supply the beams for several months. The process of steering the beams to make them hit one another is likened to shooting two knitting needles from opposite sides of the Atlantic and ensuring they meet in the middle.)
Overall I found the exhibition interesting and enjoyable, if a little short considering the price of admission. It's difficult to say what might have been added to it that wouldn't have been padding, though. Collider is open until 5 May 2014. Tickets are £10 for adults and £7 for concessions, which includes an optional £1 donation to the museum.
As physicists have probed deeper and deeper into the structure of matter and energy, on smaller and smaller scales, the experiments have become larger and more expensive. The electron was discovered by two men working in a lab the size of a typical living room. Confirming the existence of the Higgs boson required a machine the size of a city, built and operated by 10,000 people from all over the world, and cost £10 billion. (As a side note, it amazes me that this particle was predicted 50 years ago, long before any instrument existed that could produce or detect it.)
The exhibition is in two parts. The first is about the history of particle physics before the LHC. The second is a reconstruction of parts of the LHC and CERN. It's built in a curving, branching structure, reminiscent of the swirls and circles of the tunnels that house the LHC itself. Watch out for a walk-on from Professor Brian Cox in the introductory video.
There were some objects where it wasn't clear to me whether they were the real thing or scale models. (Everything about the LHC is absurdly large or absurdly small. The two beams of protons that circle inside it before being smashed together have as much energy in total as 173 kilograms of TNT, and yet a cylinder of hydrogen the size of a fire extinguisher can supply the beams for several months. The process of steering the beams to make them hit one another is likened to shooting two knitting needles from opposite sides of the Atlantic and ensuring they meet in the middle.)
Overall I found the exhibition interesting and enjoyable, if a little short considering the price of admission. It's difficult to say what might have been added to it that wouldn't have been padding, though. Collider is open until 5 May 2014. Tickets are £10 for adults and £7 for concessions, which includes an optional £1 donation to the museum.
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