Word to the machine team! In the wee hours of this morning (Monday 30 November) the LHC broke all records (can you say bye-bye Tevatron?) and accelerated protons all the way to 1.18 TeV!

As always, Facebook and Twitter had the news first, but CERN managed to get a press release off today too.

The LHC is now not only a collider, it’s the world’s highest-energy particle accelerator.

And again as always, there’s always a next step… This time’s next step is to put it all together and become the world’s highest-energy collider, smashing those happy 1.18 TeV beams together at the collision points in the detectors. That’s when the party will really start.

Besides the all-important physics, shift training, and general run discussions, there are also a few valuable and useful life lessons to be learnt on any trip to CERN. Here are four that come to mind after 10 days here…

1. Don’t try to be clever and take sneaky shortcuts through buildings. You will get lost.
2. It is useful to check what floor you are on before you get out of the elevator.
3. A tasty way of consolidating small change (especially useful for those, like me, who can’t tell the difference between the 0.50fr and 0.10fr coins) is to put 1.80 into a vending machine and buy a hot chocolate for 0.80. It will then give you a 1fr coin in change (found by accident).
4. Always go back for your umbrella.

So on Monday 23 November 2009 the LHC had it’s very first collisions!

It was actually rather surprising, as the previous week there had been a rumor circulating that we may even get first collisions on Monday, but, while hopeful, most people had discounted it as just a rumor. I was not in the control room this time - in fact I was in the BNL office in building 40 attending a meeting on EVO. Halfway through the meeting the phone rang; it was a friend, Fabien, who is a postdoc of BNL based at CERN and was actually on shift at the time (lucky fish). I was like, “Seriously? Seriously!”

The ATLAS guys were on top form and had some event displays out for the collaboration to peruse in a matter of minutes. They were made public a couple hours later on the usual ATLAS Event displays page, and in what is probably CERN’s most exciting press release of the year.

The collaboration has been extremely hard at work over the past couple of days analysing these collision events, putting together plots that show how well the detector is working, and getting ready for a major broadcast this afternoon. (In another EVO meeting last night to show & discuss plots for today’s talk, there were over 100 participants just connected remotely!)

The presentation on the LHC’s first week of operation will be live at 4pm CET (that’s 5pm for the SA folks) this afternoon. The agenda is here, and will feature a status update by Steve Myers, CERN’s main LHC dude, and reports from each of the four experiments. You can watch it live on CERN’s webcast.

This really has been a wonderful week for everyone involved with CERN and any of the LHC experiments, and a huge congratulations must go out to the entire LHC and ATLAS teams for bringing us to this point. Bring on the physics!

Okay, so please excuse the bad pun in the title, it’s been a very exciting past couple of days!

The last time I wrote the folks in the ATLAS control room were preparing for beam splashes - showers of particles in the detector from when the beam circulates all the way round and hits the closed collimators. So on Friday night after a Higgs meeting I headed over to point 1 where the ATLAS experiment is located, just the other side of the road from the Meyrin site. And almost got lost.

The last time I was at CERN was in October last year. It hasn’t changed since then, but the weather has. Coming from Joburg where you basically have to bathe in moisturizer because it’s so dry, I am not exactly used to this humidity and fog.

By the time the meeting had finished it was already dark, and so foggy I could see maybe 50m in front of me. Being somewhat cold I decided to be clever and take a sneaky route through some of the buildings en route to entrance B. I was feeling very chuffed with myself when I made it out the other side of the warren with minimal retracing of steps. And then I realised I actually had no idea where I was.

Normally, I have a very good innate sense of direction. I have come to realize that this comes from knowing where the sun is (or, at night, a familiarity with the sky). Here in the northern hemisphere, unless I concentrate, my sense of direction is 180 degrees out, as in South Africa I am used to the sun being north of me, not south. Generally at CERN though I know my way around, especially when I can triangulate my position with various buildings and landmarks.

But when I walked out the building smack into the center of a thick cloud I was finished. Entrance B, where I was trying to go, was literally 100m to my right. But all I could see were some parked cars, a traffic circle, buildings 13 and 14 (labelled usefully by a big blue number on their side) and a street sign. Kicking myself for my penchant to not pay too much attention to road names, I stood there feeling stupid for a while, and then applied some clever critical thinking and decided to follow where all the cars were headed. Which happened to be exactly where I wanted to go, and about 120 degrees from where I probably would have headed left to my own devices. Go me.

I made it to point 1 and took a quick detour to get a photo of the Globe which was looking all eery in the mist. The ATLAS control room was crowded, everyone still eagerly waiting for the first splash. We waited for beam 1 to make it all the way around (clockwise from point 2), until a quench happened in one of the LHC magnets, when the beam had made it to point 5. 15-20 minutes later the beam was back up and running, and then things happened pretty quickly - beam was suddenly at point 6, the sign in the control room shouted BEAM COMING!!!, then point 7, point 8, and finally, bam! Splashes in ATLAS BEAM AT ATLAS!!! the screen said, and everyone toasted with champagne, and posed for photos in front of the event display.

A while later that evening, they did the same with the second beam, providing some splashes from the other direction.

For the rest of the weekend the LHC team did various tests on the beams, improving performance, and getting them circulating round the machine one at a time. And then on Monday, we had our first collisions!

Excitement is growing here at CERN, and particularly for us working on ATLAS, as we prepare for beam splash events in the detector tonight.

The Large Hadron Collider is a 27km underground ring, with 4 major experiments (ATLAS, ALICE, CMS and LHCb) situated at various points around it. The particles (protons, and later on lead ions) are injected into the LHC from the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) in two directions - the SPS is the smaller black ring on this picture. Protons going in the clockwise direction therefore get injected into the LHC and pass through the ALICE detector (at point 2) first on their way round; particles going counterclockwise visit LHCb (at point 8 ) first. The ATLAS detector is situated at point 1, in between where the two beams get injected, so it is the last experiment that the particles pass through - in either direction - as they complete their circuit.

Over the past few weeks the LHC team has been working hard to get the machine ready for circulating beam all the way around. In late October they had sent ions clockwise through to ALICE, as well as protons counterclockwise to LHCb. Earlier this month they sent protons halfway round in the counterclockwise direction, through LHCb and on to CMS.

And now, finally, it’s ATLAS’s turn to see some beam! Tonight, at about 5pm CET, they will send beam all the way around the ring to the ATLAS detector.

So what will we see? We’ll get what is called a “splash event” - the beam itself doesn’t actually go through the middle of the detector, but rather hits the closed collimators just outside the detector, causing a shower, or “splash”, of particles that go through the detector. Here are some pictures of the splash events in ATLAS from last year’s first circulating beam on 10 September. We are expecting about 3-5 of these splashes from 5pm this evening, and then more again between 11pm and midnight.

To see the latest LHC beam status page look here, and here for latest news from the commissioning team.  Or, if you’re like me and you like everything in one place (because you keep forgetting where you bookmarked things) just go to the LHC portal, which has it all and more.

Also, once we get some splashes, you can see “quasi-live” displays of actual events recorded in ATLAS on this page.

And then what? After today’s beam splashes, the LHC team will work on removing the collimators and getting the beams circulating stably in both directions. Then they “just” have to steer them into one another for first collisions!

So I arrived at CERN yesterday, after a happily uneventful journey. My flight left SA at 20:30 on Tuesday evening, and I arrived in Paris just before 6am the next day (nobody in SA flies direct to Geneva, unfortunately). Hopped onto my “local” flight at 8am and was in Geneva just before 9.

One thing you cannot fault about the Swiss is their efficiency. In SA it takes ages to get your luggage off the carousel. Even on a domestic flight, you can wait for half an hour or something. Having that wait ingrained in my bones, once I disembarked from the plane and walked through to the luggage carousel to see two bags circulating, I figured it was going to be quite a while before I saw mine. Aiming to kill some time, I went to the bathroom. When I came out, I swear not 4 minutes later, my bag was the sole one circulating on the carousel and nobody from my flight was in sight. Brilliant! (OR Tambo guys, take note please.)

The ever amazing and efficient Connie Potter from the ATLAS secretariat had organised a shuttle to fetch me from the airport, so after I claimed my lonely bag I walked out the doors and straight to a guy holding a “CERN” sign, who presumably has the Swiss baggage efficiency ingrained in his bones and was probably by then wondering if I’d even made it onto the flight. Given that it was now 09:10.

So I was at CERN by 9:30 yesterday morning, which looks almost exactly the same as when I left here last year October, except for a couple minor things like a few less leaves on the trees, some renovations to the cafeteria, and a new slogan on the dipole magnet. (I will post some photos soon!) I could only check into my room at 2pm, so I went to do some work & emails in the BNL office in building 40 (the one behind the magnet in the photo there). By 11:30 I was starving, since I’d last had breakfast at about 4am on the plane (and a croissant on the CDG->GVA flight) so I found myself a yummy smoked salmon bagel. I was literally halfway through it, with a mouthful, when Sergio, a friend & colleague from UJ who is based here and working in the ATLAS Trigger/Data Acquisition sysadmin group, called and asked if I wanted to meet for lunch in 15min. Two lunches. Score.

After lunch I went back to the office, did a bit more work, then checked in to my room (which is on the fourth floor and has a nice view of the Jura), had a nap and woke up when it was so dark I didn’t know whether it was 6pm or 3am. It turned out it was 6pm I called home, got through some emails, did some other stuff that I can’t actually remember now, and then passed out until today. I think I’ve now managed to catch up on a lot of sleep that I missed out on while I was marking back at home. Which is good, because things are going to get very busy in the next couple of days, so I ought to stock up on all the sleep I can get.

In a while I’ll let you know about the upcoming LHC schedule and when we can expect beam. Right now though, I’m going to get some lunch!

This is just a quick post while I am at the airport waiting to board my flight… I’m off tonight to CERN, Geneva (via Paris) for a month! It should be some pretty exciting times while I’m there as we’re expecting the restart of the LHC and collisions to be happening soon. My husband joins me on the 12th of December and we’ll spend a couple of days in the area, before heading off to London on the 16th where we will spend Christmas and New Year with family.

It’s going to be a long and pretty exhausting trip but well worth it!

My class wrote their end-of-year exam yesterday afternoon. The paper consisted of 100 marks, 8 questions, and 1 formula sheet.

I’ve always found the idea of whether or not to give formulae to the students to be a subject of some contention among lecturers and tutors. There are some people who absolutely disagree with the concept entirely, figuring the students ought to be able to remember the formulae they need, or be able to derive them from first principles (ahem, yes you Doug ). This was the opinion of my lecturers in first- and second-year undergraduate. While this is all well and good, and particularly so if you’re training these kids to become theorists, I don’t actually figure that this is the best option.

This is something I’ve actually felt the same about since I was studying first year physics, which is why I include a formula sheet with my class’s tests and exams. My thinking is that I’d rather have them use their study time trying to better understand the concepts they are learning, and practicing applying those concepts in problems, than waste their time memorizing formula after formula.

In the real world of physics you very rarely have to remember anything. Sure, we do know a number of formulae and constants off the top of our heads, but this isn’t because we ever sat one day memorizing them. Rather it’s because we use them on an almost daily basis, so it’s something that just gets integrated into our lives, like telephone numbers, email addresses, and people’s names. So if I’m working on something and I don’t know exactly how to solve it, all I need to do is go to the internet and look it up (or in a book, in the good old days).

This is the same reasoning I apply to formula sheets, and also why I avoid giving the formula to students in the particular question it applies to. Some people like doing it that way, just putting the formula(e) they need in the question, instead of having a sheet at the back with a whole page of them. But my feeling is, in just the same way that I need to have some sort of idea what I’m looking for when I go Googling, the student should at least have some idea what formula he is looking for, or the sense to find one that contains what he needs.

This way I think everyone wins; the student doesn’t have to waste time stressing about whether it’s lambda or 1/lambda, (hopefully) spends more time trying to understand the physics, and learns a useful skill for the rest of his life.

What do you think? What do you do for your students?

So as I mentioned yesterday, getting visas was a whole bunch of fun.

I’m heading off to CERN on 17 November and am going to be there for about a month. My husband, Chris, is coming over when he finishes work on 12 Dec. We’re going to spend a few days there in Switzerland and then we’re flying to London on 16 Dec to spend Christmas and New Year in the UK.

Now, unfortunately, being South African means that we need to get visas for all these places. Actually we never used to need a visa for the UK or Switzerland, but thanks to our corrupt Home Affairs department issuing fake IDs to people left, right and center, we now need a visa for the UK. And Switzerland went and decided to become all Schengen on us in December last year. So.

Now in general I find the concept of needing to get a visa wholly annoying, and when you couple that to the procedures and forms and lists of documents and 3 months of bank statements and general schlep that you have to do, well let’s just say it’s not pretty.

The UK visa came first. Chris is way more organised than me and had his done a month and a half ago (and he only leaves in a month!) so I had a bit of a buffer about what to expect.

I had thought the form for the US visa was a bit, er, overenthusiastic. Well they could learn something from the Brits: ”How much do you earn per month after tax?” “What are your monthly expenses?” “How much ‘free money’ do you have per month?” “How many people do you know in the UK?” “List their names, addresses and telephone numbers.” “Do you have any traffic fines?” and of course the good old “Are you a terrorist?”-alike bombardment.

Luckily once you fill all that in, prebooked your appointment, paid, signed in, taken a ticket, waited for your number to be called and actually got to the interview, they’re not so stressed. I was a bit worried because I didn’t have a copy of my travel insurance with me - apparently the Diners Club or AIG or whatever’s cables had been stolen and they had no telecomms, so they couldn’t email it to me (T.I.A. folks). UK visa lady was like “Don’t worry, you don’t really need it anyway. Let’s just photocopy your medical aid card over there quickly just in case.”

Not so Switzerland. Schengen states are all about the travel insurance. In fact, while I was at the Swiss embassy I heard one of the women lambasting an applicant because her travel insurance started the day after she left (ie the day her plane landed). Swiss visa lady: “So if the plane crashes you can’t claim. Planes crash all the time, you know. I wouldn’t take the risk.”

Sheesh.

Ah, the Swiss visa. This one required a trip to Pretoria, some 60-odd km of traffic filled highway away. The GPS then takes us to the Tanzanian embassy instead of the Swiss one. Luckily there was a very nice gate guard who, while not knowing where the Swiss building was, had an extremely useful book that listed all the embassies’ addresses. He even called me back as I was walking away to suggest I take their phone number just in case we got lost. Bless.

Well, we got there and had everything necessary and more (as you do) except a photocopy of our passports. Which resulted in a wasted trip to Pretoria, because apparently these guys do not believe in photocopiers.

Still, to make our trip not completely worthless, Swiss visa lady (a different one to plane-crasher above) goes at our collection with a pink highlighter, to check if we’ve got everything else we need. Apparently my university, after having paid for my plane tickets, depositing a per diem advance into my bank account, and me having bank statements showing this, writing “Mrs Lee has sufficient funds for her trip” is not good enough. It’s got to say “The university is paying for all Mrs Lee’s expenses” instead. And then they don’t want the bank statements. “Show me the money!” is probably more effective, but whatever. It also would have been useful to get somebody who actually knew what CERN was. Holding copies of my flight ticket and CERN hostel booking she asks “So you’re staying in Zurich then?” Yes, because that’s exactly why I am flying in and out of Geneva. Of course I didn’t actually say that, the last thing you want to do is piss off the person who is holding all power over you and your trip.

(When I went back the next day I plucked up the courage to ask plane-crasher lady, who was helping me this time, if she knew what CERN was. “Of course I do!” she says. “Dan Brown wrote about it!”

…

I’ll take that as a win.)

Nevertheless it’s all done now, I get to collect my passport from Pretoria on Friday. And it was free, because I’m going for research. Score.

It’s been a rather interesting day so far, and it’s only lunchtime. I woke up at 5am to a red-orange light from all over the sky; the clouds and the sun were playing a fun game and putting on a rather spectacular sunrise. By 9am we had had thunder and lightning, soft rain, hard rain, hail, blue skies and sunshine. It should have been an omen.

My husband Chris then called me from work to say my supervisor was looking for me - apparently my cellular provider was also playing tricks and half my calls were not coming through. (I also got a bunch of text messages from throughout the week all on Saturday night,  so it was a game they’d been playing for a while). Anyway, he needed me to fetch Neil, a fellow student, from the airport at 10:30. No problem, I finish a couple things I was working on, get ready to leave, and then realise I’m locked in my house. Phone Chris and he finds my house keys in his car. Awesome.

Okay, so I can go out the back door. The only problem is my electric gate, which we do actually have a spare remote for but only the good Lord knows where it is right now. I waste 10 minutes looking for it, then decide to get the key thing and climb though the plants and mud and rain and open the thing manually.

FAIL.

Call Chris, he feels sorry for me and drives back from work to give me my own keys. He also gave me his car to drive because unlike mine it has ABS, ESP, airbags, etc and since it was raining all the people on the roads were driving like idiots (it’s like an unwritten law or something).

I finally only headed off to the airport at 10:30, when I was supposed to be at the airport already. Luckily the god of Gillooly’s Interchange was smiling on me and I got there in twenty minutes. Neil got delayed by the luggage carousel and so wasn’t waiting very long anyway.

I took Neil back to his place in Joburg and even remembered to get my travel adapters from him for my trip to CERN (I’m leaving next week, Neil just got back from there). I start heading home and Chris calls - he’s trying to make a booking for his French Schengen visa (this is a story for a whole other post), needs his credit card and realises he’s left it in his car he gave to me. I also got pulled over by a traffic cop who was manning my side of the road while the other side underwent a massive roadblock where they checked if you had any outstanding fines. (Any Joburgers reading this, by the way, avoid Barry Hertzhog heading from Empire rd towards Greenside). I give him my license, he askes me if I have any outstanding fines, I shrug and say “I don’t know, maybe” and he obviously decides it’s not worth the effort to walk across 4 lanes of road to find out. He was probably hoping I’d skrik and give him a bribe. Sorry buddy, not today thanks.

Finally, on my way back I pull in to the BP to fill up Chris’s car, and meet possibly the dumbest petrol attendant in the whole world.

Me: Hi! Please fill up with 95 for me, thanks.

World’s Dumbest Petrol Attendant: Can I check your oil and water?

Me: No thanks it’s okay. (because they don’t keep the oil this car takes)

WDPA: Check your tyre pressure?

Me: Do you have nitrogen?

You know those giant grins that people give you when they have absolutely no cotton picking clue what you’re talking about? He gave me that grin.

WDPA: Yes.

Me: No you don’t. Don’t worry about it, these tyres need nitrogen.

With hindsight I probably should not have pointed to the front right tyre when I said that.

WDPA: starts filling up the front left tyre with air.

Me (jumping out car): What on earth are you doing?! I said no! That’s air, these tyres use nitrogen!

<that grin again>

WDPA gets lambasted by fellow attendants who presumably actually know what nitrogen is.

WDPA: Sorry, sorry madam. I thought you just meant this tyre (pointing to the front right one).

Me: <sputter>

Words. Just. Fail.