After we had explored the globe museum for a sufficient time, we exited and crossed the road using the traffic island to the other side, where we easily found the visitor's center. We had decided to forgo a tour and instead visit the permanent exhibitions on our own. We would have needed to sign up for the tour, and wait for it until the appointed time. Neither of us wanted to do, and I told Okki that frankly I didn't see the need for it. Having worked years ago in similar facilities, I knew that usually there was very little to "see" that struck one as being interesting. "Lots of cables and big metal boxes," I told him. Sure, the concept of what was happening might be interesting, but it took a special eye to see it. I could look at Lawrences tiny cyclotron in the kiosk in the globe building and see the swelling of scientific discovery. I was less interested in the same thing with the great collider underground.
So we followed the tour. I skipped over the informational timelines. I cared only about seeing the replicas of the detectors and other "real life" things from the display. By far the most interesting thing to me was the ordinary metal tank of hydrogen gas that had been the original source of the proton beam, now replaced by a similar, There had been a similar ordinary tiny metal bottle of hydrogen for Lawrence's 1930 cyclotron in the kiosk display case. The only difference for the great collider was the size of the tank.
Amazing. Yet it makes sense. To make protons all you need is ordinary hydrogen gas, which you send through an ionizing chamber, to strip off the electrons, leaving the bare proton in the nucleus. Then you begin of cranking them up to high energy, by the ring like structure of cyclotron (like Lawrence's little gadget), or its later improved descendant, the synchrotron (which is the type of instrument buried beneath CERN that is 27 km in circumference.
Simple basic physics. A beam of protons. That was, as I said, by far the most interesting thing I saw in the permanent exhibits at CERN. It reminded that underneath it all, it is the same animal in many respects as the little gadget in the museum across the street, and that provided a nice connection to the real physics of the real world.
It's not as if the other details about the particle collider at CERN were not interesting to me. I could well have gotten in the details of not only the beam itself (i.e. how the protons are cranked up to high energy in the giant ring by intense magnetic fields, and then diverted into each other to slam head on, creating what are called "scattering events." There is a lot of very interesting engineering there. More interesting still are the detectors, of which multiple ones different type are placed around the giant ring to the observe the affect effects of these scattering events from collisions. These are the instruments that are used to confirm theories, etc., about the nature of underlying physical reality on fundamental level.
Yet even as I looked at all these detectors, I kept my reserve. I felt no sense of great thrill knowing they were being used to unlock the secrets of the universe. In fact, I struggled not to feel a bit of contempt about it all, knowing that it was very likely that not only were they not being used to unlock the secrets of the universe, they were quite likely being used in a giant swindle, of not only the public, but of the scientists themselves, who had convinced themselves they were doing something meaningful and great, akin to the great discoveries of the past.
After passing through the permanent exhibits, we passed outside the building into the inner courtyard from which we could see the nearby office buildings and dormitories for resident scientists. Again these were very familiar in their look. I could easily imagine what they looked like inside. To a scientist, they would be interesting, to an outsider they would be little to see. It had been part of my plan, simply to look upon these buildings, to remind myself of the lives and careers that had spent by generations of people, not only at CERN, but at other such facilities, and in universities building up the theory behind it all.
I couldn't help feel sorry for them. There but for the grace of God...
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