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European Journey IV (Switzerland/CERN)
Oct. 22nd, 2016 07:57 amNearly every international trip has issues, and for us it was the journey from Freiburg to Geneva. The bus from Freiburg was about ninety minutes late (for a one hour trip). To make matters worse, at Basel discovered that our train tickets had been allocated for the day of purchase, rather than the booked day - a rather expensive problem which I am following up. The journey itself, via Basel and Neuchatel was pleasant enough, as we passed through semi-mountainous countryside with deciduous foliage and small towns. Despite these various problems and a few emails explaining our situation, we made it to Geneva unscathed and eventually made it through to CERN itself where were very well received by Gav and the compute team who gave us a tour of the facilities as well as presentations on the the subject - it even became an "official" CERN event. It was, of course, highly educational in the relatively simplified manner of how the particle physics experiments are conducted and unsurprisingly in the huge quantities of data used.
CERN itself is perhaps the single-most famous scientific institution in the world responsible for two massively important discoveries - W and Z (weak nuclear), antimatter and a Higgs boson. Crossing multiple countries (we walked across the Swiss-French border a few times), it has the feel of a cross between a postgraduate university campus and workshop. This may be obvious enough in terms of personnel (they circulate through international physicists at an notable rate) and the lack of business attire, but is was also particularly evident in resourcing. Expenditure is not on offices or furnishings, which mostly could have easily been cheap fashions from three decades old at least - but rather on the engineering and scientific equipment. Essentially it the world's most expensive "skunkworks" - and it works. Now let that be a message to those who disdain their scruffiness, irreverence, and informalities. Because at the same time, the same culture works with extreme precision, seriousness, and commitment.
CERN itself is perhaps the single-most famous scientific institution in the world responsible for two massively important discoveries - W and Z (weak nuclear), antimatter and a Higgs boson. Crossing multiple countries (we walked across the Swiss-French border a few times), it has the feel of a cross between a postgraduate university campus and workshop. This may be obvious enough in terms of personnel (they circulate through international physicists at an notable rate) and the lack of business attire, but is was also particularly evident in resourcing. Expenditure is not on offices or furnishings, which mostly could have easily been cheap fashions from three decades old at least - but rather on the engineering and scientific equipment. Essentially it the world's most expensive "skunkworks" - and it works. Now let that be a message to those who disdain their scruffiness, irreverence, and informalities. Because at the same time, the same culture works with extreme precision, seriousness, and commitment.
