“I can’t believe such an amazing experiment is right on our doorstep!”
“Wow!”
“Thanks so much for sharing this with us!”
These are some of the quotes from around 50 residents of the Pays de Gex, mostly from Cessy, who came to a special evening visit to the CERN CMS Experiment at Cessy on October 10th. A couple of days previously, as part of the nationwide French event “Fête de la Science” (FdlS), the “Sessius 1622” château in the centre of Cessy joined forces with the CMS Experiment team at CERN to host an exhibition focused on the World Wide Web – its beginnings and its scientific use today. The topic was chosen because one of the pioneers of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, lived in Cessy, and another, Robert Cailliau, still lives in the area and, although retired, agreed to come to give a short talk about the Web at the exhibition vernissage! This exhibition complemented other CERN activities for the FdlS around the Pays de Gex as well as at the Science Gateway exhibition centre in Meyrin, near the main CERN site.
Vittorio Cammarota, from the association “Friends of Château des Cologny”, contacted CERN, who put him in touch with the Communication Group of one of the main experiments at CERN’s 27km Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the CMS Experiment. CMS is a particle-physics experiment located 100m underground a couple of km from the centre of Cessy. Operational since 2010, it explores the deepest mysteries of the Universe through examining trillions of collisions between sub-atomic particles. On rare occasions these collisions give rise to other particles that existed freely billions of years ago, in the first few seconds after the Big Bang. Studying these particles helps physicists understand why the Universe is the way it is and how it will evolve. In 2013 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Peter Higgs and François Englert, who postulated the existence of a particle now known as the Higgs boson, which was discovered by CMS and its partner experiment ATLAS (near Meyrin) in 2012. CMS has been studying the behaviour of Hiss bosons for more than a decade, as well as searching for other as-yet-undiscovered particles, pushing the boundaries of our knowledge ever further.
At the vernissage, in addition to talks from Cammarota and Cailliau, short talks were also given by Jan Van Mol (the principal organizer of the FdlS in the local region), Christoph Bouvier (Maire de Cessy) and Gautier Hamel de Monchenault (senior physicist from Saclay and present Spokesperson (project leader) of the 6500 people who work for CMS around the world). Gautier emphasized the key role that the Web plays in facilitating scientific discourse amongst collaborators, as well as being the backbone behind the “World Wide Computing Grid” that makes possible the analysis of the huge volumes of data created by CMS. He also emphasized the importance of events such as this: “It is really important to us that the local community feel part of the adventure of the CMS experiment at Cessy, so are delighted that so many people came to engage with us”. Vittorio Cammarota added: “Linking science, cultural heritage, and the arts is a fascinating endeavour — a wonderful opportunity to engage diverse audiences in sharing knowledge and passion. We feel a deep connection to the collider and like to imagine that, centuries ago, this manor from 1622 may also have witnessed other forms of scientific exploration. We look forward to collaborating again with the scientists of CMS/CERN.”
Visitors then explored the exhibits, which included 2D and 3D displays of CMS, as well as a Virtual Reality experience developed by CMS physicist Ansar Iqbal.
The vernissage was also the opportunity for people to sign-up to a dedicated visit to the CMS experimental site. Nearly 50 people, aged from 8 to about 70, came to CMS on the evening of 10th October.
Following a brief introduction to the purpose of CERN/CMS, and how collisions can provide insights into the deepest Universal mysteries, CMS physicists and engineers showed the visitors around the surface area, which include large buildings where CMS was assembled and where large new projects are presently underway to “refurbish” CMS in a few years’ time, and a display of professional and amateur artwork inspired by CMS. Visitors also had the opportunity to go nearly 100m underground! Although the CMS experiment itself cannot be visited while the LHC is operational, a large cavern containing safety systems, electronics systems and computing equipment could be visited, and the effects of the CMS magnet (the largest and most powerful superconducting solenoid in the world!) could be felt – even through a 7m-thick concrete wall!
The evening ended with an informal drink and snacks with CMS physicists, engineers and communications personnel, giving the visitors the opportunity to ask questions ranging from “what do you actually do, on a day-to-day basis?” to “how can I come and work here!?”