Central Sussex College’s return to CERN

12/12/2011

The trip helps to bring learning to life

A Level students from the Sixth Form Haywards Heath campus visited Geneva at the end of November, for a chance to see the world-famous Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This was the second trip to CERN for the College, with last year's stay unexpectedly extended by three days, when heavy snowfall across Europe meant that the group struggled to get home after airports were shut.

It was with some trepidation that twenty students and two staff from the Physics department set off from Gatwick for Switzerland on Sunday 27 November. After an afternoon exploring Geneva, Monday was spent in CERN visiting the public exhibitions as well as a behind the scenes tour of the engineering facilities. Students got the chance to get close to the giant magnets that are used to bend the particles round the 27Km circumference of the LHC, which allows particles to reach speeds that are 99.999999% of the speed of light.

Lectures by particle physicists explained how they think the Universe developed after the Big Bang, and how the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is recreating sub-atomic particles that haven't existed since then. The search for the elusive 'Higgs Boson', which theorists think is responsible for giving all other particles mass, goes on with encouraging signs of its existence starting to show, as reported in the media this week.

Teacher Deanna Nicholson, who accompanied the group along with Subject Leader for Physics, Ian Cunliffe, said: "CERN is a fantastic place to take physics and maths students, as they can see how complex and enormous projects are developed from fundamental physics principles. The range of potential career opportunities is inspirational and we always hope to have taught a future CERN employee!"